Story of An Hour

The story is about a woman having heart disease whose life is dominated by her husband. One day, the railroad disaster happened. People thought her husband was on the list of killed and they told her hesitating since they were worried the case her heart attack happening by getting shock. However, her reaction was dull. Later after she realizes her husband is alive by looking at him came back to home, she gets heart attack.

This story has some points to discuss; economically, politically, socially and psychologically of patriarchy. Economically, her husband had all the power. He worked and controlled money. Women had no jobs; she just stayed home and did household things. She was relying on her husband entirely. If her husband dies, it means money dies and she looses everything. Politically, She used to getting controlled by her husband. Death of husband is birth of her independence of herself. Reading the story, I found one thing interesting. In the book, main character’s sister who called as Josephine told her that her husband died by accident. In reality, Josephine Henry who was a major activist in the fight for women’s equality made the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1894 when this story published. I think this is meaningful. Socially, the main character is protected from stress. Even heart issues, everything about her shows her as frail, weak and breakable. Psychologically, her emotion has been changed from sad and dominated with no freedom to happy and self-controlled.  Her life is getting freedom back. People think the reason of her death is that she got heart attack cause she was so happy to see him which is not true. The fact is that she died because she was sad to see him.