Who Is Mrs. Mallard's Marriage

A Deadly Marriage

Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour,” focuses on a woman named Mrs. Mallard who is informed that her husband, Brentley Mallard, is killed while working on the railroad. However, Mr. Mallard is far from dead, and reappears at the end. Whenever most people think of marriage, they often associate it with being in love. Although this may be true in most cases, love was not the circumstance in Mrs. Mallard’s marriage. Despite her instant sorrow, Mrs. Mallard began to feel relief once her grief deviates. Mrs. Mallard is relieved by her husband’s death, feeling her freedom come back to her, a feeling that suddenly leaves her whenever Brentley Mallard appears through the door of their house. The loss of her new-found freedom causes Mrs. Mallard much more grief than her husband’s death, and she dies of what the doctors claim to be heart disease, however, the real cause of her death is the distress she feels at the sight of her husband being alive and the realization that will not be re-claiming her freedom.

Mallard is initially informed of her husband’s death, she is filled with grief, unlike the other wives and mothers who struggle to accept the reality of their losses (Chopin 3). When Mrs. Mallards tears seized and her grief had passed, she only wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Suddenly, she felt her sadness turning into something else, something she could not yet recognize. Until it hit her, she no longer felt sadness for her loss, she felt free. Her new-found feeling of freedom is proved when the narrator says, “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!’” (Chopin 6). Mrs. Mallard now saw her husband’s death as an opportunity to live her life for herself (Chopin