When Lousie Mallard learned that her husband Brently Mallard died in a train crash she wept in her sister's arms. She then went upstairs and sank herself in a chair that faced a window. She was filled with physical exhaustion that reached her soul. She had a dull stare in her eyes as she gazed at the blue patches of sky. "It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought." This quote hints how Mrs. Mallard will go through a surprising change. Most women would stare at the clouds and sky with a reflective view, but Mrs. Mallard is more prudent." There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully." "She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and …show more content…
Mallard change is her new independence. " There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. " She is excited to start living as a free woman. "Free! Body and soul free!" Louise was so excited to be free from her husband her sister came up stairs and told her to come out the room because she would make herself ill. But Mrs. Mallard wasn't making herself ill, she was preparing for her new life. " she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window." "Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." Even though Mr. Mallard was kind to Mrs. Mallard she still thought she was going to have a long boring marriage with him. She loved him very much but did not want to be with him. Within one-hour Mrs. Mallard went from being distraught to accepting Mr. Mallard's death and planning her life of independence. The presentation of Mrs. Mallard's first name, Louise, comes at the time when she feels most free. Only after her husband's death in her initial moments of grief and solitude does Mrs. Mallard become fully aware of herself. She beings to revel in her freedom by thinking of her future life - her own life. Unfortunately, her new-found freedom vanishes with the appearance of her husband and the repression he represents as alive and well. In the end, Louise …show more content…
Mallard’s heart condition. The very first paragraph informs us of her heart trouble, and how her loved ones were so careful and cautious while breaking the news to her of her husband’s death. In paragraph 11, where Mrs. Mallard cries out “free, free, free!” her heart condition is no longer an issue since her husband is dead. Her body is “warmed and relaxed.” At the end of the story, I found it ironic how Mrs. Mallard’s loved ones took spontaneous and surprising means to protect her from the realization that her husband was alive. They took little care and caution regarding her heart condition. I thought these portions of the text were significant because there was some reference to Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition throughout the text. In the first few paragraphs, my feelings were those of sympathy and pity for the wife who just lost her husband. Around the eighth paragraph, I experienced a little confusion, “Is she happy that her husband is dead?” At the eleventh paragraph, I felt relief along with Mrs. Mallard. I felt her freedom. At the beginning of the next to the last paragraph, I felt nervous, anticipating the worst for Mrs. Mallard, that it would be her husband opening the door. I could feel the disappointment when Louise opened the door was Mr.
Her death is foreshadowed in the beginning when it mentions that she was “afflicted with heart trouble”. Because of this, when her sister told her that her husband had died, it was done so delicately. After Mrs. Mallard is told, is where the story really begins to set a tone of elegiac settings, and how she is expressing herself is in direct contrast to weather, i.e. ‘the storm of grief”. When Mrs. Mallard goes to her room and sits down to rest, she begins to notice how lovely the weather is outside, and here the tone takes a sudden change from elegiac to soothing and peaceful. She notices the trees that are “aquiver with new spring life” and the “delicious breath of rain”. Not only are these segments directly related to her change of emotion, but they are also foreshadowing the Birjoy she will feel momentarily. She begins to realize she is “free” from whatever responsibilities she held to her husband, and is consumed with “monstrous joy” that she will be living “for herself”. Other symbols besides the weather, is also the bird she first notices when she first retires to her room to be alone with her grief. The birds are happy, singing, and carefree of any limitations. Also the door when her sister, Louise, begs her to open the door. She is also symbolically opening the door to her new life, the one she will live in total liberation with the restraints of her husband. She begins to also look at life with new eyes, seeing it in a different light, no longer seeing as a life of repression. She loved him, but not as much as she suddenly loves herself.
Mallard felt restricted in her marriage and displays the need for independence. Symbolism is used to exemplify the transformation from Mrs. Mallard’s unconscious, numb existence to Louise’s new founded freedom. Chopin uses the seasons to symbolize the new life taking place within Louise. This new world appears before her through the world displayed through her bedroom window. The reader views her as motionless with her dull stare transformed into a gaze focus off yonder, symbolizing her future. The unknown feeling of freedom grew closer to Louise. Mrs. Mallard gains this “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.” This alludes to Mrs. Mallard’s desire for independence.
Mrs. Mallard is sad, when Richards tells her that her husband has been “kill”, but when she is by herself she realize that she is free. She is happy and she stars murmuring to herself about the body and the soul being free. Before she starts murmuring the narrator describes her as she notices “something coming to her,” and she tries “to beat it back with her will.” This an
She has no uniqueness of her own; she is just a woman that belongs to her husband Mr. Mallard. After she realizes how free she is, readers begin to see her as an actual person. The spring season reflects the rebirth of Mrs. Mallard’s character. The storm clouds clearing to show blue skies is symbolic of the storm of her marriage passing. Even though Mrs. Mallard knows that she should not be happy, she cannot stop her feelings of joy: “She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her” (151).
Mrs. Mallard’s happiness was in fact, the cause of her death. This death, arrived out of shock that her weak heart could not handle. The arrival of her husband who was the cause of her new-found freedom caused her death. Mrs. Mallard’s death could be seen as the ultimate freedom from her unhappy marriage. Though her life ends in an extremely ironic manner, Mrs. Mallard does in fact finally escape the restrictions of her old life, not merely upon the hour before Brently Mallard’s arrival but in the end for eternity.
The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
Mallard who receive news that her husband just died. Mrs. Mallard at first is a grieving widow. As she starts to think about it, she is happy that her husband is dead. Mrs. Mallard finally feels “free” to do whatever she feels like now. When she finds out that her husband is alive, she dies of a heart attack. This short story shows that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her relationship with Mr. Mallard. She seems relieved that he is gone and now she can start a new life. Clues in the text like “free body and soul” seems that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her marriage. Mrs. Mallard does not grieve her husband 's death that long, she is only upset for a couple minutes. Some married people grieve for years about their love ones. However; Mrs. Malard is upset about the news about her husband then like ten minutes later moves on and thinks about the
Mrs. Mallard is an ill woman who is “afflicted with heart trouble” and had to be told very carefully by her sister and husband’s friend that her husband had died (1609). Her illness can be concluded to have been brought upon her by her marriage. She was under a great amount of stress from her unwillingness to be a part of the relationship. Before her marriage, she had a youthful glow, but now “there was a dull stare in her eyes” (1610). Being married to Mr. Mallard stifled the joy of life that she once had. When she realizes the implications of her husband’s death, she exclaims “Free! Body and soul free!” (1610). She feels as though a weight has been lifted off her shoulders and instead of grieving for him, she rejoices for herself. His death is seen as the beginn...
To start off, this short story is packed with an abundance of symbolism that further highlights the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling after hearing the devastating news of her husband’s death. Although she is instantly overcome with grief upon hearing the news, there were ‘’patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds…” (Chopin 476). These patches of blue sky represent the plethora of opportunities that await Mrs. Mallard now that she has been given a fresh start, with total and unrestricted freedom. Shortly after, Louise begins to comprehend how her husband’s death has in turn completely changed her life for the better. In addition, Mrs. Mallard’s heart troubles also bear a symbolic significance. Her physical heart complications symbolize her discontent with her lack of freedom in her life and marriage. In contrast, when Mrs. Mallard initially realizes the liberty and independence that she now possesses, “her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood w...
Mallard’s emotions over the presumed death of her husband. The author used both dramatic and situational irony to mislead the reader and surprise them with a plot twist ending. By utilizing both external and internal conflict the author expresses the internal debate of Mrs. Mallard’s true feelings and those of the people around her. The author used symbolism to display Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom from her marriage. In the end it was not joy that killed Mrs. Mallard but the realization that she lost her
When Louise Mallard first hears that her husband was killed in a railroad accident, "she wept at once," and "went away to her room alone" (12). As she mourns, looking out of her window on the second floor of her home, a sudden change of heart begins to come over her. She notices "the delicious breath of rain," " a peddler . . . crying his wares," "notes of a distant song," "countless sparrows . . . twittering," and "patches of blue sky," "all aquiver with the new spring life" (13). As she stares at the sky, she begins to think about her newfound independence from her husband, uttering the words "free, free, free!" (13). What makes her develop such a sudden change in attitude? Could it be that she sees rebirth in the world through her wind...
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
The first reader has a guided perspective of the text that one would expect from a person who has never studied the short story; however the reader makes some valid points which enhance what is thought to be a guided knowledge of the text. The author describes Mrs. Mallard as a woman who seems to be the "victim" of an overbearing but occasionally loving husband. Being told of her husband's death, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (This shows that she is not totally locked into marriage as most women in her time). Although "she had loved him--sometimes," she automatically does not want to accept, blindly, the situation of being controlled by her husband. The reader identified Mrs. Mallard as not being a "one-dimensional, clone-like woman having a predictable, adequate emotional response for every life condition." In fact the reader believed that Mrs. Mallard had the exact opposite response to the death her husband because finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow. "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." We can see that the reader got this idea form this particular phrase in the story because it illuminates the idea of her sorrow tuning to happiness.