Discuss how "The Story of an Hour" depicts man vs. man.

The conflict within "The Story of an Hour" that encompasses man versus man must not be read literally as "man," but as humankind. In the story, the narrator reflects on marriage and observes that it is an institution in which there is a "blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature." In other words, Chopin was exploring the idea that when people enter marriages, sometimes they believe it empowers them to feel as if they own or control their spouses. The story suggests that marriage is especially oppressive for women because of societal expectations for them, seen in how Brently Mallard and Richards take control of the situation that Louise and her sister Josephine could likely handle on their own. The men infantilize the women and likely never would have come to the conclusion that Louise could have felt free instead of devastated if her husband had died.

In this story, we see a conflict between Louise Mallard and her husband, Brently, without his even being present: in this way, we experience a conflict that could be described as character vs. character (a more gender-inclusive way of expressing the conflict). Upon learning that her husband has been killed in a railroad accident, Louise evidently begins to feel something a lot like relief. The narrator says of her,

There would be no one to live for her 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.

Louise has, apparently, felt incredibly oppressed by her marriage. Though her husband himself was kind and loving toward her, the institution of marriage granted him legal and, in practice, social authority over her. She now hopes to live a long life during which she can enjoy her newfound "free[dom]," and the narrator says that "It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." She didn't enjoy living her life before, but now she anticipates years of happiness. Because of this antagonism between Louise and her husband (who is, in some ways, the agent of society), one might classify the story's conflict as one of character vs. character. However, it is possible to argue that the conflict is character vs. society as well.