Story Of An Hour Mrs Mallard Character

Mrs. Mallard is a character who takes on many forms and emotions throughout this short story. I found myself constantly picturing many different images of, and emotions for her throughout this story. We are told she “was afflicted with a heart trouble” (174). So Initially I pictured a very week feeble woman with gray hair and lots of wrinkles. I initially feel a lot of sympathy for this woman as she is already suffering from heart problems, now she has lost her husband. I soon learned this is just my own opinions on the woman and she is in fact “young, with a fair, calm face” (174).
Once Mrs. Mallard gets through the initial shock phase of grief we learn a lot more about the person she is. We also learn about her relationship and her overall attitude about the life she is living thus far. I was immediately intrigued by the details that Chopin put into the story that Mrs. Mallard notices upon entering her bedroom. “She notes of a distant song
which someone was singing “(174). I find this to be very interesting because I imagine myself in her shoes and I would be so overcome with emotion I cannot imagine I would be able to hear a distant song as she describes. This information is vital to helping me understand what comes next for her character.
Although this woman is grieving she is also experiencing many other emotions, relief, freedom, sadness, content, and hope.
The author sets the stage in such a way I feel like Mrs. Mallard is going to possibly go insane, but what comes out surprised me. Instead of losing her mind in grief, she finds herself. I find this to be very pivotal in explaining her relationship with Mr. Mallard. Chopin describes a woman who is feeling oppressed in her marriage, and overall not happy with her life. I feel like many women can relate to this feeling. Often women lose their identities when they get married because they lose their name and their own purpose. Knowing that this story was written in 1896 I feel like Mrs. Mallard was born in the wrong century. She is a modern woman stuck in a time when a woman could not be their own person. Their identities were with their husbands. This is exactly what she is feeling when she says “Free! Body and soul free!”. (175) She is realizing she now can become the person she has always wanted to
be.
I find myself feeling happy for her that she found a reason to continue living. She is now excited to see what tomorrow may bring. She finally has a reason to live and she is now her own reason for living. I imagine that to be a very powerful exciting thing. The feeling of freedom is what men fight die for, and here this gift through death has landed in her lap. She is free, she answers only to herself. That is a very powerful thing. It is the thing that made her get up and walk down the stairs. The very thing that leads her to her ultimate death.
After feeling such a rush of life and, tasting freedom she was shocked and stunned to see her husband standing at the door. This causes her to die when she realized her hopes, and freedom is now just a dream. Chopin had it right Mrs. Mallard was indeed someone with a weak heart who could not handle the news of her dead husband’s journey back to life again.