Mrs Mallard Character Analysis

I n the Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin gives us the feeling that Mrs. Mallard is unhappy in the by telling us “she was presses down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (227). We learn right off that Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition and should be treated tenderly. When she heard the news of her husbands death, she was at first upset and distraught. She did not begin to feel better until she had time to sit and think, with “the delicious breath of rain was in the air” (227). Mrs. Mallard felt lonely and did not know what to do with herself anymore. She realized that there would no longer be someone there with her to be there when her life expired. She often had the feeling that life was too long and that the end would never come for her. That was a sign that Mrs. Mallard was a lonely and isolated woman. She was sitting there in the chair when it came to her in a sudden rush. That she is “Free! Body and soul free” (228). Mrs. Mallard knew then that life was not short after all. Life was short and she should live it to the fullest. She is now free to do as she pleases. Mrs. Mallard has a feeling of freedom, freedom form the loneliness and isolation that she has felt for a very long time. She is now free to be herself

Mallard is unsatisfied with the limitations of her marriage, however, like Desiree, she is submissive and believes that the end of her duties as a wife will come at the death of her husband and her freedom will be given to her. Also, she experiences little or no feelings because of her marriage. This is shown when Mrs. Mallard, after hearing of her husband’s death, cries, but ironically she senses a moment of euphoric pleasure at the awaiting freedom in her remaining life. “She saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” Mrs. Millard is now aware of things that were not noticeable before such as: the beginning of spring, patches of blue sky through clouds, the twittering of sparrows and the smelling of the pending rain, which may signify the nature of her freedom. Mrs. Mallard would now be able to live her life outside the home and find her identity.

The character Mrs. Mallard from Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” can be considered both sympathetic and unsympathetic for various reasons. She could be seen as a sympathetic character because of the times Mrs. Mallard’s character came from. On the other hand, she could be seen as unsympathetic for how her character is very self-centered. We see this in how she is constantly rationalizing with herself that her feelings of joy at her husband’s death were well founded. There are also several other variables that must be taken into consideration when deciding if Mrs. Mallard is a sympathetic character, or not.

Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”

Mrs. Mallard had, "in that brief moment of illumination"(15), stumbled upon a truth: she was now her own person, free from the confines of her husband. She had loved her husband, "sometimes"(15), but that didn't matter: "What could love ....count for in the face of theis possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! THE theme of the story unfolds at this point: Mrs. Mallard, through the death of her husband, is able to experience the joy of the realization

Mrs Mallard's awkward attitude after learning of her husband's death establishes an irony- somebody who is really happy in marriage will not enjoy nature in peace and have mixed emotions; the person will feel genuine grief upon hearing of the death of her husband. Here, Mrs Mallard's reaction portrays the extent to which her thirst for freedom was strong. Kate Chopin allows us to visualise the moment that Mrs Mallard is able to shed the bondage of marriage: "free, free, free!." She feels liberated through her husband's death. Much emphasis is laid on her joy upon finding freedom- "there would be no one to live for." The author also points out that "she knew that she would weep again.....folded in death." This only highlights the fact that it is not an expression of love but seems more like a duty that

"The Story of An Hour" by Kate Chopin is written using a third-person limited omniscient point of view. This point of view is used to show and manipulate Mrs. Mallard's emotions, while still being able to include events that she did not know about and would never be able to learn due to her sudden death. The omniscient narration of "The Story of An Hour" also creates a reliable narration since the storyteller is not a character and is not plagued by incorrect information due to mental illness, lies, confusion, etc. The narrator uses especially descriptive wording to illustrate the main character's emotions through out the text. For example Mrs. Mallard's initial central conflict was the grief she encountered over her husbands death. To paint

In Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” she writes of a woman named Mrs. Mallard. In her story Mrs. Mallard has just learned of her husbands death. She is at first over came with great sorrow and devastated by the news she just received. As the story goes on Mrs. Mallards feelings change, to being overcome with the feeling over freedom and joy.

In the beginning of the story, the tone is hopeful. Mrs. Mallard just learned her husband has died and is realizing all the things she can do now. Kate Chopin uses words such as “free” to describe her life now that she is not married; as if Mrs. Mallard felt trapped before. The sentence structure and imagery Chopin uses to describe what

The characters in the story are Josephine – Louise Mallard's sister, Richards – Brently Mallard 's friend and the one who informed Mrs. Mallard about her husband's death, Brently Mallard – Mrs. Mallard's presumed dead husband, and Mrs. Mallard – a woman who seems to be in deep physical and emotional suffering. She is not only “afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin par. 1), but it seems that she is also suffering from a

“There would be no one to live for during those coming years. There would be no powerful will bending hers”. She conclusively apprehends the word “free”. Because she was free now that her husband was no longer there. Free to do what she wants, free to choose, free to decide what she wants to. However, never did she love him to have the fluidity to be content of the loss of her husband. “Yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not.” We could note that Mrs. Mallard and her husband did not have a good relationship. Furthermore, “what could love count for in the face od this possession of self-assertion.” Thus, the realization of her freedom of her self-importance was worth that the hegemony that love apply upon couples. Love appears as a restrain, an abandon of liberty and autonomy in the eyes of Mrs. Mallard. And, she was free of love by the death of her husband. Suddenly, the call of Josephine “Louise open the door” resound as a call into the reality---. But she was ascertained that she was not dreaming and her new asset was real and eternal. She was a “goddess of Victory”. Nevertheless, the reality had not said its last word in its purpose to awake her. While Mrs. Mallard and Josephine came down, “Someone was opening the front door.” “It was Brently Mallard who entered”, appeared in front of them back from the dead. Seeing the one who was at the origin of her pain all those year, presenting as a ghost who

The Woman protagonist and Mrs.Mallard both become aware that they are active in the system of traditional gender roles once their husbands loosen their restraints on their subjects and leaving them alone. Mrs.Mallard becomes aware of this tragedy by secluding herself from both her sister and Richard, while the women protagonist becomes aware through the strange and peculiar formations of the wall she is enclosed in through her husband’s treatment. After a period of weeping with her sister and the accompany of Richard, Mrs.Mallard decides to seclude herself from her company and locks herself in a room. There she griefs a little more but then feels something strange. As if something ominous in the room. She asks for her body to be freed from this intruding danger. But then it something comes to her mind; she was free. Free from her husband, her marriage. After all “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 her being!” (Chopin 1). Although as the reader finds out latter that Mr.Mallard is fine, well and still the man in the family, without the presence of a male figure to asses dominance by proxy, Mrs.Mallard comes to the epiphany that she has been held back. She has been held back by the bondage of marriage which prevents from feeling any source of identity or originality. She comes to realize her presumed dead husband has held her back from choosing she wants to accomplish in life. She desires her selfish ambitions over the state of her marriage. She comes to realize this revelation when that love has been taken away by a tragic accident. To Mrs.Mallard love can now take the backseat in her carriage; she can let her desires roam wherever they so please now that her husband has been presumed dead. And while she might think she has control, the wife of John has no power. But the protagonist wife is starting to come to her senses that she might just be the victim of her husband's grave captivity. Assigned with bed rest by her husband, the main character is locked in a room and is required to do absolutely nothing but rest. This means she cannot read, write, draw, or anything that would revolve around

Mrs. Mallard is sad that her husband is gone and "She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death;" (Chopin 14). However, she looked forward to her new and independent life. "There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself." (Chopin 14). Mrs. Mallard gleefully embraces the fact that she was no longer: attached, married, and even better she was no longer Mrs. Mallard or Brently's wife. Louise was no longer defined by her husband. People would now see Louise not Brently's wife. She was now Louise who was "free, free, free!" (Chopin 11). Louise would dictate her own life and the course she wanted her life to take. Louise's character was not content with her marriage or her life. Being in an unequal marriage, where her spouse controlled her was something Louise did not agree with. She seemed to have an

In the short story, Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard is a woman who has heart trouble. She finds out that her husband, Brently, has been killed in a train accident. Upon finding this out she is overcome by grief and cries in her sister’s arms. She then retires to her room alone to calm down and soon realizes that she is no longer held captive in her marriage and that she is now a free woman, able to do what she pleases. She feels joy at this revelry and yet feels horribly because she only loved him a little bit. Her sister beckons her to come out of her room and as she is coming down the stairs, the door to the house opens and in walks her husband. Her husband’s best friend tries to hide Mrs. Mallard from seeing her husband but it was too late. Mrs. Mallard died.

The story is centered on how the character of Mrs. Mallard changed from the juncture of her husband’s death at the moment her husband walks through the door at the end of the story. Mrs. Mallard is depicted as a frail woman, when we see her bodily conditions such as her “as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been” (251, paragraph 10) evidently portrays that she had frail hands, which show her weakness on top of her medical conditions, her weakness eventually led to her death. Her relationship with her husband’s depicts how weak woman’s relationship of this society was. She’s a great example of many of nowadays marriages which are usually despairing “She did not stop to ask if it were a monstrous joy that held her” (251, paragraph 12). Her husband is shown as foist, he is no different from men in this society, this usually means the women are weak with no choice other than to obey their husbands “And