At first to me Kate Choplin's "The Story of an Hour" does not seem very interesting. A closer look must be taken in order to see the true meaning of the story. There is more symbolism in this three-page story than in most of the long books that I have read. It is very unlikely that you can find all of the symbolistic words in this story, but most of them definitely stick out.
             The first sentence of the story is "knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death." The first thing we are told about the main character is that she has a bad heart. It seems that this is what people see when they look at Mrs. Mallard, someone weak and fragile. I personally get an image of an old lady, which I later learn she is not. Her heart condition shows that she has a hard life, and seems far older than she is.
             In response to hearing the 'bad' news, "she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms." Her reaction shows that she is a passionate person, a lot more mournful than I would have thought. While other wives could not except the fact that their husbands were dead, she took to it immediately and began grieving right then.
             As she sits alone mourning her dead husband, she sat in the armchair facing the window and had a feeling that "haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul." This seems like she is feeling the hold her husband had on her that she couldn't seem to escape even after he's gone. The fear she has can be thought of as physical abuse. Since this story was written in a time when the man was the powerful one and the women were submissive, it isn't out of the question that the man hit her.
             "The new spring life" could represent the new life that she could have now that she was a wi
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