Brennan Cohoon

English 10, 5th hr

2/17/16

Unknown Unhappiness

 

    Mr. Mallard has been “dead” through the story until the end.  He goes to work by train because it is too far to walk, and he supposedly died from a train accident.  Mr. Mallards best friend is Richards and he comforts Mrs. Mallard after she finds out that her husband is “dead”.  There wasn’t a part in the story where there was any evidence of Mr. Mallard being a bad husband.  He had “kind, tender hands”, and “had never looked save with love upon his wife.”  When Mr. Mallard showed up in the end of the story, it was as if he acted like nothing happened.  It was as if he wasn’t even on the train when it got in an accident and Mr. Mallard was composed.  Calm and free, he didn’t know what they thought, it was just another normal day.  He was a great husband but Mrs. Mallard was still unhappy.  Nobody knew why but that was her life, and she was unhappy with things.  Maybe she didn’t love him like he loved her.  Throughout the story, we find out different things about Mr. Mallard by the way people act when talking about him.  Nobody knows when he leaves, how he leaves, or what he does.  All they thought was that he was killed in a train accident and they didn’t know what to do.  “The Story of an Hour” takes place in the nineteenth century and Mrs. Mallard is home and upset.  We most likely know that Mr. Mallard’s pay and job payed for his wife and him.  We would also suppose that Mrs. Mallard’s sister lives with her too, meaning that Mr. Mallard was a genuinely kind man willing to support his family and his wife’s sister.  Mrs. Mallard is “unhappy” in the story, Supposedly about her husband’s death.  But maybe that’s not why she is upset.  Maybe she isn’t happy because she never really loved him.  Maybe she wanted a challenge and she didn’t want the cliche perfect husband to herself.  We never know, she could have never wanted him.

 

This story was based off of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin.

 

Reflection:

I chose to talk about Mr. Mallard in my essay because he seemed like a cool dude.  He came off as a nice mysterious guy because of the things he did.  He was very mysterious because he wasn’t even in the story.  I hoped to show that he didn’t deserve the disrespect from his wife.  I included quotes from the original story about how Mrs. Mallard described her husband.  The strongest part of my story was the ending where I wrote how this whole story could’ve been a legit mystery including Mrs. Mallard’s feelings.  I thought this essay was easy with the flow of it.  There was no really boring parts but the hard part was finding examples from the story describing Mr. Mallard.  I like assignments like this because it’s an easy way for the teacher to know if we actually listen in class and I wouldn’t change anything about the assignment, I am content.