Mrs. Mallard In The Story Of An Hour

Character Analysis of Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin is a story of a woman who, through the mistakenly reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Louise Mallard, who is the protagonist of this story, has under gone the loss of her husband Mr. Mallard and as the story progresses the readers can see how she transgresses different feelings about the matter. Mrs. Mallard incidentally recognizes a new free life and enjoys it just in a short moment; exactly one hour right after getting the news of her husband’s death in a train accident. Louise Mallard is saddened by her husband’s accident and it affects her health, changes her personality, moral, and even causes death.
As the story unfolds, the readers discover that Mrs. Mallard’s heart troubles may have resulted from the stress caused by her reaction to her position in a male-dominated household and to a less-than-loving marriage. For example, in paragraph 8, Chopin says the young woman’s face “bespoke repression” in paragraph 14, and the author tells us that a “powerful will” was “bending” Mrs. Mallard. Finally, in …show more content…
Mrs. Mallard finds freedom in the false presumption that her husband is dead, and dies when she faces the truth. By dying at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard fulfills her dreams of freeing herself from her uneventful marriage. Louise Mallard’s life has been all about living for her husband and that he has been the center of her life. Which means that he is the reason for her living. Mr. Mallard has been bending what she wants to what he wants and he has been forcing her to live the way he wants her to live. What the readers can learn from this story is that living your life for another human being and sacrificing your dreams just for your partner’s selfish needs is just absurd. Love is not selfish, self-seeking, and does not