Biographical Strategies Essay

The information of an author’s original life helps readers comprehend his literary work in a better way. Incidents in a literary work are often influenced by real events in an author’s life as if characters are the real persons known by the writer. By studying biographies of writers we often find that there is lot of biographical evidence to identify that character’s actions show author’s own activities and experiences in life. Having knowledge of the author’s own experiences can be easily gained by reading his biographies, diaries, letters, and other written works. This sort of information can assist to deeply understand how characters are portrayed in the narration. Similar events about writer’s life will not create the narration a well-written literary work, but this information makes clearer the origin of writer’s beliefs and his personal experiences convey his main concerns as a narrator. This information is a caveat for keeping the story in focus, a reader who finds biography is having connection with the theme would state that biography can at the very least help as a power on interpretation. Therefore, many readers believe that biography is helpful for interpretation. Analyzing â€Å"The Story of an Hour† by using Biographical Strategies Chopin’s â€Å"The Story of an Hour† represents a feel of a repressed wife’s on her husband’s death. She senses the feeling about the freedom from her husband. She gets a new sense of herself when she comes to know about of her husband’s death. Readers might be enticed to read this narration as Chopin’s explanation about her own marriage as her husband died 12-yrs before she wrote this story and 7-yrs before she started writing fiction properly. Biographers appear to acknowledge, however, that Chopin’s marriage was no doubt gratifying to her and that she was not pressurized by her husband and never felt suppressed. Furthermore, read this excerpt from her diary that is just one month after Chopin wrote the story. It is taken from â€Å"Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography† by Per Seyersted): â€Å"If it were possible for my husband and my mother to come back to earth, I feel that I would unhesitatingly give up everything that has come into my life since they left it and join my existence again with theirs. To do that, I would have to forget the past ten years of my growth  ¬Ã¢â‚¬â€ my real growth. But I would take back a little wisdom with me; it would be the spirit of perfect acquiescence. † This biographical evidence surely adds to the potential of interpretations. We, as a reader of â€Å"The Story of an Hour†, find that there is very much resemblance of the story with the real life of Chopin. In a Railroad disaster, the news of Brently Mallard’s death is received while his wife is young. Then, Mrs. Mallard imagines about her next life that would be a â€Å"free life†. These are some of the significant perspectives of the story that are also part of Chopin’s own life. Though, Chopin really loved her husband and wished to get him back again but it is also reality that she had very successful life that she spent freely after his death (Chopin). A reader, who doesn’t have any biographical knowledge about the Chopin’s own life, will understand the story in a different way. He may disagree with Mrs. Mallard’s vision of â€Å"free life†; but the reader who has biographical information of Chopin’s life will rebut that argument with a confirmation of Mrs. Mallard’s thinking. ? Works Cited Chopin, K. The Story of an Hour. 1894.