In the story you learn immediately of the death of Mrs. Mallard's husband, Brently Mallard's death. You also are told right off of her heart trouble and her friends reasons for breaking the news to her slowly. At first, I felt horrible for the woman, but the way her reaction was described, you know something was wrong. When she was at the window I was surely thinking that death was on its way to her as well. I came to realize that the feeling she felt was freedom. The line, "She had died of heart disease-of joy that kills," was clear because of what she cries out and what she was said to have been feeling. par.
Her husband possessed her. She was no longer a possession and was able to possess her own life. She realized that she would weep when she saw the kind tender hands, of her husband, folded in death but realized that they were the hands of someone that never looked at her with love. par.
She says she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long and only yesterday she shuttered at the thought. Just yesterday she was dreading living another day and now she was relieved she would. She obviously, was filled with joy from the burden that had been lifted from her shoulders. Some people don't want to live anymore days because even though they are alive, they are not living, or not being allowed to live. Even though, she was alive for a short while after she heard of her husband's death, that was the only real time she had to live the way she wanted to. The author wanted to push the envelope and wanted to show, in this story, the tribulations a woman goes through when she is neglected and unloved and forced to live through someone else.