Ms. Mallard In Ernest Hemingway's Short Story Of An Hour

3. My age and social economic status does limit my perspective on this story from lack of many experiences, but I do relate to loss and shock from one particularly challenging incident in my life about three years ago. It messed with my mind more than my heart. Throughout the entire story it seemed that the main character, Ms. Mallard, had not been emotionally present. Her husband’s death and reappearance was clearly a trigger to whatever hidden feelings that she had manifested in her shocking death related to their time spent together. As a young male, I find that true feelings are really hard to display in a society that expects you to behave a specific way under certain unwritten codes. Living in a modern world where women with economic

means legally exercise their positive rights, I can’t possibly understand what being a woman in a hopeless marriage would be like. However, as a Christian I believe that it is wrong to rejoice in anybody’s misfortune but for all I know she may have held the same beliefs but was not able to carry them out. Having had to see the doctor about my heart I am aware that there can be hidden physical things that have nothing to do with our feelings but when the right stimulus is provided can manifest.

5.

Although Ms. Mallard was described as a goddess of Victory the truth that can be applied is that her own trap was being set. This is because it is known in our society (male or female) that one who holds a grudge or offence ultimately becomes bitter, creating their own bondage. In fact, the word offence means ‘trap stick’, implying that one traps themselves, not the offender, by holding onto an offence. It could be said that she was not so trapped by her marriage as she was by the offence she held, even after her husband’s death. A false sense of victory is an effect many people have after rehearsing or meditating on their grudges. Perhaps she feels victorious by having survived this long under the oppression of the marriage that she hated so much. However, we can read the reality was that she was barely holding on to her own life under the weight of all her resentment. The irony of the story is that she died because she believed a lie and did not die of ‘a joy that kills’ but rather a spirit of fear and darkness. It is beneficial to the story to have the ignorance of the doctors displayed rather than someone who was paying attention because it provokes a strong opinion from the reader who has had the privilege of peering into her

life.