To be able to fully understand literary text, sometimes one has to look further into the historical context.  For example, in Kate Chopin's short Story of an Hour, the author uses symbolism and various types of ironies to highlight the contrasts between her story's protagonist and the women of her time.  Her character Mrs. Mallard goes against the typical belief of Victorian women ideals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Instead of quietly going about under the dominion of her husband, Mrs. Mallard recognizes her new freedoms and all that comes along with them.

In the late 19th Century, women were viewed as domestic creatures who took care of their families and their homes.  During this Victorian era, women were taught to be sensitive and submissive, often thought of as being the weaker sex.  It is why feminism was able to take off as much as it did during this time period.  Women fought for their right to vote, divorce, and receive an education.  Instead of being forced to sit all pretty and bear children, they were out achieving social reformation . 

The feminist movement came about in the late 19th/early 20th centuries as a series of campaigns for reform on various issues such as voting, domestic violence, equal pay, and reproduction.  There were three main waves of feminism.  The first of which came about around the time when Chopin started writing and publishing her works highlighting women's suffrage near the turn of the century.  Feminists set about to rid society of its patriarchal dominance and gain freedom for themselves . 

In Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour, the female protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, has heart trouble.  The symbol of Mrs. Mallard's heart troubles represents more than just a health condition.  It is physical and symbolic.  The heart is a delicate symbol often used when talking about love.  "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!" .  Her heart troubles could have very easily been partially coming from her marriage with her husband.  Sure she loved him some of the time but at the same time it was probably weighing down on her.  She felt trapped in her marriage like most women at that time.  That is why she felt so relieved when he died, sad at first, but overall relieved. In the end, her husband turns out to still be alive.  It was that initial shock, that loss of joy, that killed her.  The doctor's in the story diagnosed her as having died from "heart disease" believing her to have been so overwhelmed with joy that her heart stopped.  In reality, the pain of the loss of her independence was too much for her to bear .

 Windows symbolize freedom or a sort of passageway.  Chopin also uses the open window in the isolated room as another symbol throughout her short story.  Mrs. Mallard realizes all of her potential and all of her newfound freedom in the death of her husband.  While looking out the window, sobbing, when the feeling of her independence overcame her.  "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."   The longer she stares out of the window, she allows this joy to take over every part of her.  It springs her to life in the wake of her husband's death.  This open window provides her a clear opening for her to look into her future as a free woman and all of the things she can now do, completely free from anything or anyone bending her will to their own .

Irony is a situation or event that seems contradictory to what one might think something to be which often produces an amusing result.  Kate Chopin uses lots of dramatic situational irony throughout her short story Story of an Hour.  Richards, a friend of Mrs. Mallard's husband, told her about her husband's death after receiving two telegrams about the incident.  However, when one is thought to be dead, they aren't thought to walk through the door 60 minutes later.  Instead of Mr. Mallard being the one who is dead, it is Mrs. Mallard who dies in the end.  After Richards told her of Mr. Mallard's death, Mrs. Mallard breaks down sobbing and locks herself in a room.  After sitting in the room for a little while, she starts to sob for a completely different reason.  She realizes she isn't sad about the death of her husband but that she is rather happy about it, elated almost.  Josephine, Mrs. Mallard's sister, is worried about her being locked in a room all by herself because she could be making herself sick.  Instead of making herself ill, Mrs. Mallard is dreaming about how amazing her life is going to be now that she is free from her oppressing marriage.  Not that much later, she comes out of the room and goes downstairs to greet her sister with joy only to find her not-so-dead husband to walk through the door.  Mrs. Mallard dies from the shock and depression at having her new independence taken away from her.  "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills."   She wasn't full of joy or relieved to find out her husband was still alive, instead she was the exact opposite.  

Historical context often times helps to frame a story and helps the reader to go deeper into the text to understand its meaning and significance.  The first wave of feminism was just starting to kick-off during the time Kate Chopin wrote her short story called Story of an Hour, which is why it was so influential at the time.  Her strong use of symbolism with the heart and the window as well as constant irony really exemplified women's underlying desire to be free and independent from the constricting lives they lived in the Victorian era.  The heart symbolizing love and desire, the open window representing Mrs. Mallard's independence, and the irony of her reaction to her husband's death as well as her own death.  Story of an Hour as well as other works by Chopin, were extremely influential in the late 19th century for that reason.  
