Mrs. Mallard's View Of Marriage

In “The Story of An Hour,” Kate Choplin wrote expressing ideas of marriage in the Victorian world in which she lived. According to these ideas, there are many differing perspectives on how Choplin’s main character Mrs. Mallard found joy and freedom after losing her husband. Because Mrs. Mallard has these thoughts, she does not seem to be a victim of Victorian attitudes toward marriage. First of all, Mrs. Mallard followed the rules and expectations of marriage when her husband was alive; however, after his presumed death she found freedom from no longer being married. For one, while her husband was alive, she had to be subservient to him, according to the Victorian culture. After his death and her liberation she says that “there would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.” Because of her husband’s absence, Mrs. Mallard could now live for herself since being married meant that men viewed women to be under their dominance and will. Another thing, the Victorian period expected marriage to be exalted over personal freedom. For example, Mrs. Mallard loved her husband and was loved her husband, but she valued self-freedom over that, which is contrary to the beliefs of that era. Trying to explain her values, the story says, “and yet she had loved
Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of