Story Of An Hour Conflict Analysis

In the short story “The Story of An Hour” there is a fair bit of conflict. The main conflict lying with the main character of our story, Mrs. Mallard. She has just been informed of her husbands death by railroad accident. Upon hearing this news she is met with an internal conflict, she misses her husband yet at the same time she feels free because in that day and age the husband controlled the wives life. I tend to believe that Mrs. Mallard handled her conflict as best as she could, and heres why. First of all she knew there would be this conflict and perhaps even had thought of this scenario before. I know this from this quote, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it?” By running the
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.”
This is another normal process in grieving, the mixture of different emotions, all flooding in at once. Instead of attempting to hold back all of her emotions she is facing them head on and trying to get a good understanding of them. It is at this point in the story that we find out her husband is actually alive and the reported death was a mistake. At learning this knowledge Mrs. Mallard tragically dies of a heart attack, apparently from the shock of the news. So, in conclusion I believe that given the circumstances Mrs. Mallard was doing the best she could to deal with her internal conflicts. She began processing it before it happened to prepare herself mentally, she allowed herself to feel all of the emotions the loss brought on, & she faced her emotions head on to best understand the root of them & begin the healing