What are some examples of literary realism in "The Story of an Hour"?

The definition of literary realism
is:

readability="7.8345323741007">

Literary
realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works
of  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_literature_of_the_19th_century">nineteenth-century
French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary
life and society "as they
were."

Also, it is defined
"...as "the faithful representation of reality."

Literary
realism, in other words, is simply writing that reflects the reality of the time in
which it was written, without romantic colorings: a "what you see, is what you get" kind
of writing.

In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin, the
author, did exactly this, and was not loved for doing so.  A woman whose husband had
died, leaving her with children to raise, Chopin knew from first-hand experience how
difficult it was trying to survive in a male-dominated society, and
her themes often reflected this. Many people, male and female, saw
this idea as "heresy."

This is exactly what Louise Mallard
is doing: trying to survive in a male-dominated society, and it was, in fact, just that:
women rarely had jobs outside the home during this period unless they donated time to a
charity of some kind. (Women who had to work were only able to get menial jobs—taking in
laundry or working in sweat shops—where clerks (who typed and wrote letters) were
men. So Louise Mallard's life was dull and lacking
purpose, as dictated by society to the women of her station. This was,
however, a time when women were beginning to ask important questions of
society, especially as to where they fit in, and why their role was a subservient
one; and it is also for this reason that these kinds of stories were so
popular with women during the 1960s.

In this story, Louise
Mallard has a working husband who seems to love her; she has every
material thing she could want.  However, it is not until
she receives news of Brently Mallard's death that she starts to realize she has been
given a great gift: freedom. She had not even known it was out there, had not
understood what she had been living without all those years. "Her character
represents feminine individuality..." in a time when women had no such
thing.

In a brief hour, her life becomes newly defined and
the idea of this is such that she can almost not contain her joy and sense of release.
Where the day before, life had seemed like a long progression of days without end or
purpose, she now sees a long progression of days which she prays will never
end.

Society's male-dominated hand is seen
everywhere. Louise is treated like a fragile doll; the
author states this is because the members of the household are worried for her health.
 The news of the accident is broken to her gently by a family
friend, Richards. Even her sister-in-law, Josephine (who represents the women
of that era who lived lives without ever questioning their place within
society) is alarmed by Louise's subsequent desire to
lock herself in her room (to consider the change that lies before her), rather
than look to another woman to support her. Josephine also
represents that portion of society that believes a woman is inherently weak
and can only handle so hardship without breaking into
pieces.

When Brently returns home, unharmed at the end of
the "hour," and Louise dies from the shock, the norms of society are heard in
the doctors' diagnoses that she died of a weak heart because her beloved husband had bee
returned to her and she could not handle her elation: she had died, they
said, "of the joy that kills."

Only a woman who had looked
to find her own purpose in life, as Chopin was forced to do, would be able to verbalize
the irony that Louise dies not die
because she is weak; she dies from the devastations of knowing freedom for an hour and
realizing it has been snatched from her hands, so that she must now return to her life
of purposelessness.  She cannot live with this, and so she dies, more accurately, not
from a weak heart in the face of joy, but from a broken heart at the loss of
joy.