The Story of an Hour Outline

Introduction:

*Central Theme ÐŽ§FreedomЎЁ

*Key points of story that help identify the internal/external conflict.

*Climax and whether the ending is a catastrophe or resolution.

I. To begin w/ lets look at what the internal conflict is:

Louise felt repressed in her marriage to her husband, in a sense she wanted to be free from him.

1. Look at 1st paragraph, which sets the stage for this story.

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

2. Describe the setting in her room, which is the setting in the story.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. (Notice the hints given)

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. ( This description of the scenery is very happy, usually not how one sees the world after hearing devastating news of her husbands death.)

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

3. How she feels repressed, then she gains her freedom.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

II. External Conflict:

Louise feels that her society is repressing her she wants to have the same freedoms

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