When Death Unlocks Life's Cage

Ron quietly reads Kate Chopin's revolutionary short story "The Story of an Hour," a tale about a woman who discovers a sense of freedom after learning of her husband's supposed death. The story unfolds with a shocking twist ending that reveals profound truths about marriage, autonomy, and the complex nature of human emotions in the late 19th century.

• Mrs. Mallard, a woman with heart trouble, learns her husband has died in a railroad accident
• After initial grief, she experiences an unexpected sense of freedom when alone in her room
• She whispers "free, free, free" as she contemplates a future belonging solely to herself
• Mrs. Mallard acknowledges that while she loved her husband sometimes, she values her newfound independence
• The story ends with a devastating twist when her husband appears alive, causing Mrs. Mallard to die from shock
• Doctors misdiagnose her death as being caused by "the joy that kills"

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to The Story of an Hour
• 1:11 The News of Husband's Death
• 2:16 Moment of Realization and Freedom
• 5:40 The Shocking Conclusion
• 8:30 Podcast Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello, are you tired? You will be. This is Ron Reads. I'm reading a book. It's called the Story of an Hour. It's by Kate Chopin or Chopin, I'm not sure but I'm going to read it to you very quietly. For some reason, that's what I think when I read this story. This is what it says the Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. By Kate Chopin.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Knowing that Miss Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break it to her as gently as possible, the news of her husband's death. It was her sister, josephine, who told her, in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed, in half concealing, her husband's friend Richards was there too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brantley Mallard's name leading the list of the killed. With Brantley Mallard's name leading the list of the killed. He had only taken time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story, as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment in her sister's arms.

Speaker 1: 2:11

When the storm of grief had spent itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy chair, and to this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. 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 the 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 caves, there were patches of blue sky showing here and there, through the clouds, rather, that had met and piled one above the other. In the west-facing her window, she sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in his dreams.

Speaker 1: 3:36

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. She was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspicion of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it fearfully. What was it? She didn't know, it was too subtle and elusive to name, but she felt it creeping out of the sky, reaching towards her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously.

Speaker 1: 4:20

She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will, as powerless as her two white, slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself, a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath free, free, free. The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

Speaker 1: 5:10

She did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death, the face that had never looked, save with love, upon her, fixed in gray and dead. But she saw, beyond that bitter moment, a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely, and she opened and spread her arms out to them and welcome. There would be no one to live for her 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.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. Louise, open the door. I beg, open the door. You will make yourself ill. What are you doing, louise, for heaven's sake? Open the door. You will make yourself ill. What are you doing, louise, for heaven's sake? Open the door, go away, I'm not making myself ill.

Speaker 1: 7:21

No, she was drinking in every elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her Spring days, summer days and all sorts of days that would be her own she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory. She clasped her sister's waist and together they descended the stairs.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Richard stood waiting for them at the bottom. Someone was opening the front door with a latch key. It was Brantley Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly, carrying his grip-sacking umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry, at Richard's quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richard's was too late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease, of the joy that kills. You've been listening to Ron Reads the Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. Please give me a five star rating. Leave a glowing review and share this immensely boring podcast with someone that you may or may not love. Goodbye.