Essay written about the working title "The Dream of an Hour" of the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. The essay explores the different denotations of the word dream in combination with a close reading of the text itself.
The working title for “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin was “The Dream of an Hour”
(Knights xvii). The Oxford English Dictionary offers various definitions for the word
“dream” and therefore offers different interpretations of the story that can be linked to the
working title. Examples of various definitions of “dream” are: “the sound of a musical
instrument or singing voice; music, minstrelsy, melody; singing, a song,” “frenzy, delirium”
and “a delightful, excellent, or exceptionally attractive person or thing” among other
definitions (OED). In the book Understanding Sleep and Dreaming, William Moorcroft says:
“For some researchers the definition is very narrow; dreams are only created during
sleep and have a narrative quality but with hallucinatory and bizarre elements. For
others dreams are more broadly defined; dreams may also occur when awake, such as
during meditation, drug influenced states, daydreaming, hallucinating, and during
drifting waking thought” (148).
By looking at the working title “The Dream of an Hour” instead of the title “The Story of an
Hour”, the story gets different connotations, which results in different possible interpretations
of the story. The word “story” in the title that is used in the present suggests that the short
story is just a story being told to the reader, whereas the word “dream” suggests that it refers
more to the experience of the main character than to that of the reader.
The first explanation of “dream” that can be linked to “The Story of an Hour”, is:
“Something imagined or invented; a false idea or belief; an illusion, a delusion” (OED).
According to this definition, a dream is something that the character imagined, invented or
falsely believed. The following quote from “The Story of an Hour” measures up to this
explanation:
, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was
it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping
out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled
the air” (447).
The “something” that is named in this quote, is something that is invented by the mind of
Mrs. Mallard: she imagines that there is “something coming to her” and that she can feel
whatever this thing is “creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her” and it becomes clear to
the reader that this “something” is a thing that does not exist as a tangible thing (447). Selina
S. Jamil suggests in her article “Emotions in ‘The Story of an Hour’” that the “something” is
the freedom that will await Mrs. Mallard as a widow, or the “consciousness of her own
individuality” (216- 217). Another example of the definition of “dream” that is mentioned
above being applied in the story, is: “No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that
open window” (448). The “elixir of life” is clearly an imagined thing, a false belief even. It
could be a metaphor for hope, but later in the story it becomes clear that this so-called “elixir
of life” did not help Mrs. Mallard: she still dies at the end of the story, due to her dream being
shattered as soon as Mr. Mallard steps through the door. Jamil explains the death of Mrs.
Mallard in her article: “The shock that kills her must, then, be the realization that she has lost
this freedom, and with it her human individuality. Her emotions spread through her entire
being so profoundly that they lead to another severe physical change, and she dies
immediately” (Jamil 220). Thus, the illusion of freedom and individuality kills Mrs. Mallard
when she realizes that it is a false belief.
The second denotation of “dream” is: “A vision or hope for the future; (in early use
chiefly) a vain hope or idle fantasy; (now also) an ideal, goal, ambition, or aspiration” (OED),
this particular denotation is proved to correspond with “The Story of an Hour” through the
quote: “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would
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