The irony of the ending indicates that women were so controlled in this time period that they could not even live a life of freedom in the seclusion of their own minds. .
Mrs. Mallard's metamorphosis begins when the news of her husband's death arrives. It might seem that Mrs. Mallard does not take her husband's death seriously. At first, she is stunned into tumultuous grief as she falls with "wild abandonment, in her sister's arms" (439). However, she "did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance " (439). Mrs. Mallard has already begun to anticipate her new, free life without her husband before the hour had passed. My own experience dictates that love and marriage are sacred institutions, and if my significant other died, I would feel like part of me died. Instead of feeling "free," as Mrs. Mallard does, I would feel imprisoned by my loved one's death, because he had gone somewhere beyond my reach. Furthermore, I feel a sense of freedom with my loved one, because I am unrestrained and able to act myself in his presence. Mrs. Mallard, on the other hand, never felt this. She probably could only be herself when she was alone, and she rarely had that opportunity. .
We also learn that Mrs. Mallard had ambiguous feelings towards her husband: "And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not" (440). Although it is not evident from the text, there is a possibility that her marriage was arranged; this is something that I can not even fathom. If I had been forced to marry someone I did not even love, I would probably feel the same as Mrs. Mallard. We also learn that Mrs. Mallard is young, yet she has heart trouble. I took this to mean that she led a miserable life, and that her heart trouble was self-inflicted through stress or unhappiness.
The short time that transpires during the story is critical, because we usually think that mourning occurs for a year or more, yet Mrs.
Such is the case of the central character in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." ... After learning of her husband's death in a railroad disaster, Mrs. ... Physically and emotionally drained, Mrs. ... Mrs. ... Louise returns to the friends and family who had so recently brought the news which began her metamorphosis. ...
