The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

In the short story ‘The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin Mrs. Mallard had a heart condition and found out that her husband had died in a train wreck and then shows up alive. That emotional roller coaster takes a toll on her heart and she dies. All the emotions she went through and then the shock of seeing her husband alive was too much for her. Mrs. Mallard went to her room to grieve for her husband. To be in a marriage is to be in love and together for better or worse and not to feel like you are in prison. Being unhappy was not her husband’s fault or the culture’s fault, he loved her. She should not have felt like she was free just because her husband died. Mrs. Mallard was unhappy and she should have done something about it and not blamed her husband.

I do not think that Mr. Mallard was a bad husband but they were in a situation where he worked all the time and she stayed home which was typical in those days. They had been married and were devoted to each other so I feel they loved each other but she was sick and he had to work. Marriage is not easy and you do have to work at it. I did not get that Mr. Mallard was abusive to Mrs. Mallard from the story because the author wrote, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death…” (648). I think he might have been overprotective of her because she had a heart condition and he knew that her heart was weak and could not take too much excitement or emotion. When she was in the room alone she looked out the window and it was a beautiful sight and she thought of all the amazing things she always wanted to do and may have felt like it was him that kept from doing those things. Mrs. Mallard was struggling with herself about who she was and her heart condition limited her. She felt as if he was the reason for all the things she wanted to do but was never able to. Her heart condition was debilitating and one will take things out on people that are closest to them. She felt, and when she found out that he died she thought about all the things that she wanted to do, she could finally be free and independent, she would finally be able to live her own life.