Analysis Of Mrs. Louise Mallard, By Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin successfully challenged the stigma of the female gender in the culture of the 1940s, by daring to allow her main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, to admit the thoughts she had immediately after the supposed death of her husband. These thoughts, which would be socially accepted in the current culture, were clearly ones that a good woman and loving wife would not have dared to express.

From the beginning of the story Mrs. Mallard is portrayed as a woman who does not deny emotions as seen in this quote: “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment…” So, it isn’t surprising that in her private moments after the

Mallard began to recognize her feelings as those of freedom from the suppression of her husband it was easy to see that she had guilt about her feelings, but not enough to stop entertaining them. “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” The rule of her society in the 1940’s would not have allowed for thoughts of being free to enter her thinking. In society today, an unhappy wife has the right, is even expected, to wish for freedom from the suppression of a heavy handed

It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” Many wives in our culture endure unhappy marriages, but usually not because of social gender stigmas, but because of fear of living life alone and the poverty they might endure without a husband’s paycheck. Louise knew there would be sadness but it would be brief. She seemed not to fear being alone, because she would not have financial worries – she would be rich - rich in possessions and rich in