A Psychological Analysis of the Story of an Hour(2)

She was so happy that everything in her eyes looked so lovely and sounded pleasant. An unspeakable anticipation took her by storm. Although she was a little bit fearful of it, she could hardly conceal her pleasure that she wanted to ‘drink in the very elixir of life through the open window’. She murmured to herself over and over, “Free, free, free!” “Free! Body and soul free!” Her seemingly inappropriate pleasure formed a striking yet discordant contrast with the death of her husband. All these show that she was no other than a beast in the cage and she had repressed herself for so long. But now, she could at last live a kind of life she wanted. Though sometimes she felt she had love for her husband, she often denied it. Maybe this kind of love was only out of her responsibility as a wife. So this was the so-called happy marriage! Here the authoress elaborated a vivid picture of the working mind of the heroine as if she were directing a movie. She faithfully presented a series of snapshots like montage to her readers. Though she never commented on it from the moral standpoint, we still can draw the conclusion that the superficially lucky and happy marriage is a castle in the air; that is, it might lack nothing but love. Perhaps Mr. Mallard did love her too, but he often ignored her existence as an inpidual. In another word, he loved and treated his wife as a pet. And then we can imagine that how many women of that day would suffer the fate of Mrs. Mallard!

While Mrs. Mallard was indulging herself in the sweet daydreams, her sister Josephine’s knock at the door took her back to the real world. Josephine had thought that her sister locked herself in the room to vent her grief. She worried about that her sister would drive crazy and probably commit suicide on impulse, so she insisted on her opening the door. However, ironically, Mrs. Mallard still wanted to taste the sweetness of freedom a little longer and even began to make a blueprint of her future carefree life, so she dragged on deliberately to open the door for her sister.

When she went out and descended the stairs with her sister, she refreshed herself and ‘she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory’. But her sweet dream was doomed to be fulfilled because that the news of her husband’s death turned out to be a rumor. When she saw her husband came back safe and sound, she was so shocked, and maybe also so despaired that she couldn’t stand the blow brought by the trick God played with her. She was so psychologically weak that her heart disease suddenly attacked her and sent her directly to the no-return road. Interestingly, the doctor arbitrarily declared that she died because of exhilaration, and probably the cause of her death could only be rendered this way. Sadly, even until her death, no one could understand what Mrs. Mallard was thinking about.

The death of Mrs. Mallard is far from an inpidual tragedy. It is a true reflection of the common fate of women in the 19th century. Simultaneously it is also a eulogy dedicated to them. Although all Mrs. Mallard’s efforts and desires end in vain, she echoes the second women movement in full swing in the United States and provokes more people, especially women to think about their own destinies. Considering the fierce public response to the publication of her Awakening, Kate Chopin must feel much stressed so that she denied that she was a feminist. Sara Parton, one of her contemporaries and the most controversial American woman writer, didn’t admit either that she was a feminist. But they both have made great contribution to the elevation of the women’s social status.

Short as it is in length, the Story of an Hour affords us much for thought. Notably the author has wonderfully adopted the stream of consciousness in her novels and with her subtle description she has produced a ‘true-to-life’ effect. In this sense, we can decide that she is a good practitioner of it presented by William James. Thereby we can also see the pervasive influence of psychological analysis among the English writers.

【Bibliography】

[1] Chopin, Kate: The Story of an Hour; from The Selected English Short Stories, Compiled by Du Lixia; Xi’an Jiaotong University Press, December 2001.

[2]朱刚.《新编美国文学史》.上海外语教育出版社,2002年12月第1版.

[3]朱世达.《当代美国文化与社会》.中国社会科学出版社,2000年11月第1版.

[4]朱刚.《二十世纪西方文艺批评理论》.上海外语教育出版社,2002年10月第1版.

[5]彭贵菊.《真实的束缚，虚幻的自由》.《外国文学评论》,2003年第1期.