Mrs. Mallard In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

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In The Story of an Hour a woman named Mrs. Mallard with heart trouble goes through many emotional states quickly throughout the story. This occurs when Mallard’s sister informs her that her husband has died in a train accident. This leads Mallard to cry for an instance. Until she leaves her sisters side and goes into her room alone. Once in her room she began to have realizations. She became delighted, not because she did not love him or vice-versa, but because she would now be free. As this story took place in the 1800’s when woman did not have rights and freedoms like today. After coming to conclusions with self-possession she leaves her room. Not long after this her husband she thought was dead walks through the door. At this moment Mallard falls dead. The doctors believe this is because she is in such joy of her husband being alive, but really this is due to a heart-attack from her freedom being taken away again, instantly. “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!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright.” Mallard was obviously excited to be free from her husband’s command. …show more content…

Therefore she is a sympathetic character, but she puts herself before him. “And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” There is no wrong doing by Mallard putting herself before her husband. As she had lived a tied up lifestyle without any real self-possession. “‘Free! Body and soul free!’ she kept

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