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Mrs Mallard Relationship In The Story Of An Hour

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"The Story of an Hour" is a short story in which Kate Chopin, the author, paints a picture of a sort of off relationship between husband and wife. When a loved one dies one may think, the first natural action would be, to go in shock. Mrs. Louise Mallard, the main character, did indeed have that reaction but only for a split second. The next feeling that drifted across the room like mist over a placid lake, is the one to change the entire tone of the story. She felt freedom and an unfamiliar happiness after she hears of her husband's death. All the bliss goes out of the window when she learns that her husband, Brently, is still alive. The disappointment and shock, killed Mrs. Mallard. The narrator knows more than we, the audience knows, …show more content…

Brently Mallard is not a bad person, for the most part we understand that he loves his wife and wants only to be there to help guide his wife into the right direction, “Brently had only ever looked at Mrs. Mallard with love (Paragraph 13)”. Much like third person there are different opinions in the relationship and the difference between the Mallards point of view is uncanny. Mrs. Mallard believes she is being held back in her marriage. Mrs. Mallard feels that the control he has on her is not helping and when she learns of her husband's death, she knows that there will "be no powerful will bending her" ... There will be no husband who believes he has the "right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature (paragraph 14)”. When Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband's death, she realizes that he will no longer be there to block her dreams and passions in …show more content…

Does the shock of her husband still being alive do her in or is it the heart condition mentioned in the beginning of the story? When Mrs. Mallard walks down the stairs with her sister, she has triumph in her eyes (paragraph 20). For this short period of time Mrs. Mallard, realizes that life is hers to live and she can live it however she chooses. She gains freedom, independence, individuality, and a multitude of things to look forward to in life. When Brently walks in the door, Mrs. Mallard knows that she will never be free. This being a bit too much for Mrs. Mallard to handle, her freedom being given to her and snatched away from her in the same day she felt life had been forbidding before, but now she knew she’d have to face the fact that life wasn’t changing to freedom for her. Now that Mrs. Mallard has tasted what life might have been like without her husband, the idea of continuing her former life is unbearable. When Mrs. Mallard sees that her husband still lives, she dies, killed by the disappointment of losing everything she so recently thought she had

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