What I love about "The Story of an Hour" is how succinct it is but also how vivid it is. In this short story, Chopin covers a snapshot of Louise's life — one hour that changed her life both literally and emotionally. As a connection to the epiphanic approach in writing, this story's plot rises with the husband's death, reaches the epiphany when Louise realizes she's now free, and falls when she sees her husband in person and dies. Considering the reader-response perspective, Louise's death has many subsequent interpretations. Some may feel sympathetic for Louise, but others may feel sympathetic for Louise's husband, thinking that he did nothing wrong all this time yet comes home to witness his wife dead.
Interpretations are heavily dependent on our mindset, values, and experiences. What we are skilled in, from philosophy to science, also impacts our views. Coming back to the concise yet vivid scenes in "The Story of an Hour," I think this method of form and language is similar to movies and musicals. While there are debates like pancakes vs. waffles, the specific one to focus on today is movies vs. TV shows. I prefer TV shows, but many of my friends prefer movies because of its brevity but emotional capability. In just 1-2 hours, movies delineate a detailed plot and often bring viewers along an emotional rollercoaster. Similar to Louise in "The Story of an Hour," the common plot of movies is to face a problem, solve it and reach an epiphany, then finally reach some sort of conclusion—most likely good, but sometimes bad. While movies are short in time length, they are action-packed; in just 1-2 hours, we immerse ourselves in the characters aside from our real life, potentially the highlighted story of an hour of the day. And finally, movie endings are often open to interpretation and produce lots of debate, just as "The Story of an Hour" creates various interpretations due to our different reader responses. An example I'll provide is from Hamilton: Eliza's final gasp. What do you think that meant? (Actress Phillipa Soo said "Night to night it was different ... it was an exploration for me every day")
To end on a comical note, let's go back to pancakes vs. waffles. Since this blog post discussed brevity and vividness, I'll consider time length to cook and flavor. As aforementioned, I prefer TV shows — its longer length provides me more episodes to grow with the characters and their emotions... under similar logic, I'd wait longer for my waffles to toast (as compared to microwaveable pancakes) for its rich, crispy flavor.
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