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Alex H

The Story of an Hour The Story of an Hour is a story about marriage and a womens life in the mid 1800s. The main character receives news that her husband is dead and after a brief moment of sorrow she is overjoyed with the sense of freedom and just as she is going to open the door and leave forever her husband opens the door and she is depressed she dies of a heart attack on the spot. This story shows about life in the mid 1800s and how women were treated around that time. The main character is an example of an average housewife of the mid 1800s. At that time women were not allowed to go to school and were expected to marry and do housework. The main character was sad when she first heard about her husbands death but after a brief moment of sadness she was filled with happiness. At that time the only way women could get out of a marriage was if they died or there husband died. In that time period the husband controlled all of the money so it would be pointless for a wife to run away from a house and food provided by the husband. When the main character realized that her husband had died she had planned to be free, something unheard of for women in the mid 1800s. Imagine what life would have been for the husband. As he walked into his house he was clueless about the accident that the wife thought had killed him. He was very far away from the accident scene and didnt realize that it happened until after his wife had died. The company that he works for had accidently printed his name on the list of men killed. He would have had to been very sad that his wife had just died. In the story it had said that the husband loved his wife very much so seeing her die would have been very depressing but in the mid 1800s he would be expected to remarry and start the cycle over again. Women have no choice at all, for them it is marry or find a way to live off of zero pay because they were not allowed to have a job.

Alex H

Lastly, the author of the story was a woman in the mid 1800s and probably was forced to change the end of her story. In that time period it would have been unheard of for women to have freedom, even in a story. This story was published into a magazine which was run by men. The author most likely had at first written an ending that involved the main character to be free but had to change it because men ran the magazine company, completely unfair to women. That was just the way life was for women in the mid 1800s, completely unfair. In conclusion, The Story of an Hour, although fictions, tells a lot about a womens life in the mid 1800s. Back then women had no say in things and werent even aloud to work. The men controlled all of the money so marrying was very common for women. Divorce was not an option because with no money and no job running away would be impossible. The Story of an Hour does a great job in showing what a womens life would have been like in the mid 1800s and although fictions, we can learn a lot from it.

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