The passé simple is used almost exclusively in literary narrative and is used in a similar way as the passé composé would be used in everyday French, to express actions that occurred at a given moment in time.
Elle a
ouvert la porte: She opened the door (passé composé): describing a
single action that someone did at some point in time, not continuous,
not repeated at any regular interval.
Elle
ouvrit la porte: She opened the door (passé simple): also describing a
single action, except you would only see this in literary narrative and
never in spoken French.
Elle ouvrait la
porte: She opened/was opening/used to open the door (imparfait): more
context would probably be needed to figure out what is actually being
said, but it could imply that something happening WHILE the action was
going on or that it was a habitual action done at regular intervals.
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