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Mrs. Mallard Heart Trouble

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Mrs. Mallard Heart Trouble
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is a captivating short story. It is defiantly one of the most interesting ones I have read. I actually, for once, enjoyed reading a story from an English textbook. One thing I found very curious was Mrs. Mallard heart trouble. I believe that her heart is symbol for a few things. Chopin talks about her heart issues at the beginning and the end of the story. The heart trouble affects Louise both physically and symbolically. The first thing we learn about Mrs. Mallard is the fact that she has heart trouble. Chopin uses this polite term in a medical sense, but it has a deeper meaning. This is what makes the announcement of her husband’s death so dangerous. Her friends are not sure how well she will take it and are nervous of how her heart will handle the dreaded news. A person with a weak heart would typically not take this very well. The fact that she has “heart trouble” should be taken as more meaningful though. The “trouble” she has, is the pain that she …show more content…

It expresses our feelings and we can even act out of what we think our heart wants. Louise’s physical heart trouble symbolizes her emotional problems in their marriage. “The face that had never looked save with love upon her” shows she had internal problems with her husband. She is also unhappy with the lack of freedom she has in her life and marriage. As the story continues the idea of her heart continues. When she finds her new freedom her heart races and pumps blood through her veins. Her new independence fills her heart. Then when she dies it is painfully ironic. The diagnosis of a heart disease seems about right. The surprise of seeing her husband was enough to kill her. The doctors said she had “the joy that kills”. Yet Louise must have felt extreme disappointment when Mr. Mallard turned out to be alive. We felt her independence and freedom whoosh out of her. We could feel her heart break in two

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