However, her freedom is taken away when she then finds out that her husband didn't die. Therefore, because of the shock, according to the doctor, she dies of "heart disease – of joy that kills" (Mays 477). .
Kate Chopin exemplifies in the short story her beliefs in the role of women in marriage and feminine identity ("The Story of an Hour" 263). Mrs. Mallard is known in the beginning of the story only as a wife, not as a person. She fantasizes a life in which she can enjoy herself as she is, and not be restricted by another person who believes he has the right to change drastically her will. It is appreciated in the story that Louise was feeling oppressed by her role as a housewife and depressed about not being able to be herself and do what she desires. But after she hears the news of her husband's death, while she was in her room, sitting on a chair and looking at her window, she was sensing an unknown and strange feeling coming towards her that was regarding of her lost. However, that feeling was neither sad nor grief as the one that she felt seconds after the bad news, which scared her: "There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air" (Mays 476).
Louise realizes then that that feeling was freedom: "When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: 'free, free, free!'" (Mays 477). This is an example in the story that proves that the protagonist was being somebody that the people wanted to be, instead of being herself. Kate Chopin placed that event in the story to make an understanding to the reader how many women were oppressed by marriage in the 19th century.
