Realism-The Story of an Hour

In the Story of an Hour, A young woman learns that her husband has died in a terrible accident. At first she is distrought, as she should be, and then she really gathers her thoughts and realized that she was no longer his property. That she was free. This was a great feeling for her. After she gathered her emotions she went back downstairs to find that her husband is alive and well. Then the now un-widowed woman suddenly fell to the floor, dead with sorrow.

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 armchair. Into 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 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 eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

This is one of the main "proofs" of the realism in this story, the author, Kate Choplin, wanted the reader to truely feel where the woman was; in spirit and in setting.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. 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.
She did not stop to ask if it were or 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 and 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 in welcome.
There would be no one to live for 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.

This paragraph addresses the social issue of realism, The new found widow was raised as a woman in that time period usually was, her main goal in life was to become a man's property. She was to bear his children and never look for happiness anywhere else. The woman thought that the life of a widow, though depressing, was going to belong to her. Now she was the king of her own damn court. She could make her own decisions and furfill them to her content. I can identify with her hope for freedom.