The Story of an Hour

In The Story of an Hour the significance of paragraph five is to help the reader feel what she is feeling and seeing. It’s were you begin to feel that she is fading from becoming no longer among the living, like she is flying above and seeing things from outside her own body.

When Chopin used the phrase “suspension of intelligent thought” Chopin (193) she was indicating that there was a loss of thought, that Mrs. Mallard’s mind had gone blank. The opposite passage of “suspension of intelligent thought” would be “there was something coming to her” because her thought process has begun again.

“And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being”Chopin (194). This phrase epitomizes the story. At this point she realizes that she is her own person. She loved her husband but has found her self as an individual again. She feels free again.


Litereture reading *reacting *writing - Kirszner & Mandell 2007