As a reader, it is obvious that news isn't sent via TV or phone, and that people travel by railroad. These details confirm time period to the reader, and that period supports the trapped confines of marriage as a theme.
The plot of the story -- woman gets news of husband's death, woman locks herself in room, cries, contemplates her future, comes back downstairs only to see him walk through the door, and the shock of it kills her --- centers on Mrs. Mallard's view of her marriage being a miserable one. Without that theme, the plot is boring and flat, and would really only be what it was described it as above, bare bones, no meat. What makes it come alive is the fact that the news carries a hidden meaning, known only to Mrs. Mallard, the unexpected escape from the prison that marriage was for her, with a "long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome"" (13). This hidden theme gives Chopin the opportunity to expand the plot into what it becomes, a story of misunderstandings, ironies and metaphors used to the best effect.
Chopin's choice of characters set up her theme to work with greater effect. The choice of making her protagonist a woman "afflicted with a heart trouble, " makes the readers of the story sympathetic. We feel sorry for her getting this bad news, and then we feel glad for her when we realize it is really good news, because she has been trapped in her life. She is shown as a helpless woman, who strove to "beat (the feeling of freedom) back with her will -- as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been" (10). If the main character was a man feeling trapped my his marriage, it would be a different story entirely. Women were seen as their husband's property back then; "Women were not granted the right to vote in political elections until 1920"" (Hicks) If a woman left a marriage back then, she would have nothing, the man would retain all the property and money.
