Louise Mallard and the Elixir of Life:
      Understanding Kate Chopin's Drinking Imagery in "The Story of an Hour"

      One of my students recently made a very odd claim about Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." According to the student's essay,
      Louise Mallard had a serious drinking problem. As soon as she heard the news about her husband's death, she fled to her room upstairs and started drinking.
      There is so little mention of of drinking or drunkenness in Chopin's little tale that the student's comment caught me by surprise, so I re-read the story, very carefully searching for evidence that Louise was a drinker. The only direct evidence which supports such an offbeat interpretation is in the following passage:
      Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door.”

      “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

      It is immediately clear, alas, that the student has things confused. Obviously the student has taken the word drinking in a somewhat literal sense when Chopin was using it in a figurative or metaphorical sense. As a result, the student has introduced the notion of alcoholism into a story which has nothing at all to do with literal drinking. Such a misreading is a real problem.

      Actually, an important part of the student's problem here is that he didn't take the drinking imagery literally enough. If he had seriously tried to make a mental image of someone literally drinking a literal liquid called an "elixir of life" as it literally came through a literally open second floor window, then the student writer would have realized that Chopin could not be speaking literally. The imagery of some sort of intoxicating liquid pouring in through the open window and into Louise's mouth would have clearly seemed too fantastic to be taken seriously, that is, literally.

      Another problem with student's interpretation is that the words of the story don't even say Louise was "drinking." The actual words are "she was drinking in a very elixir of life." "Drinking in" does not mean the same thing as "drinking." To drink means "to ingest a liquid"; to drink in means "to pay close attention to or to be fascinated by." And what was she paying such close attention to?

      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.
      Whatever Chopin is talking about in this pasage, it is is certainly not a literal alcoholic liquid.

      Most likely, the student would never have misunderstood the passage if he had been familar with the expression elixir of life. Originating back in the days of alchemy, the expression elixir vitae or "elixir of life" refers to a magical concoction capable of promoting long life. "A very elixir of life," the exact words used by Chopin, refer to the thoughts of freedom that occur to Louise as she sits by the open window. And the very next passage after the "elixir of life" passage makes the reference to long life clear:

      Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
      In other words, a fair paraphrase of the "elixir" passage would read something like this: Louise was sitting in front of the open window, thinking thoughts of freedom and looking forward to a long lifetime of living for herself alone.

      By not visualizing what the words of the story actually say and by not being familiar with expressions like "to drink in" and "elixir of life" the student led himself astray in his understanding of the story. Drinking alcohol has nothing to do with Louise Mallard's fate.