" The death of Mr. Mallard releases Louise's desires and numerous possibilities of being a liberated woman to the audience. Her life that was with her husband was thought to be lengthy and full of dread, but almost instantaneously after she hears of his death, that life becomes filled with hope.
Kate Chopin uses vivid imagery to convey the solitude and freedom Louise finds as she accepts the death of Mr. Mallard. We picture her weeping "with sudden, wild abandonment," something we would not imagine a woman with heart trouble doing. This image gives the audience a sense of her breaking free from her troubles as a wife. "When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone." As all storms occur, we know that it will pass. After staring out her open window, we also see the "patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds." Since the clouds are dispersing, we can sense that she is no longer in the "storm of grief" and a new joy is coming into her independent life. Her troubles are no longer present. With the death of her husband, Louise quickly finds happiness. The new joy is her freedom and her new life. A freedom that would not be seen if Mr. Mallard was not "dead." The images of the descriptions of the trees, the birds, the sky, the taste of the rain all represent different components of the same season and symbolize the different aspects of what Louise's new life may bring. A vivid image showing the new life she has now since her husband is dead is when "her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body." Her heart is no longer troubled, since the blood "coursing" throughout her is warming her body, representing a new life she now has.
In addition to the ironic details and imagery in "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin foreshadows the release of Mrs. Mallard to the audience as an independent woman, no longer repressed by her marriage or her social circle.