Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour Essay

Mrs. Mallards reaction to her husbands death seems very strange. Most women would be in immediate denial, a blank stare or shock, but Mrs. Mallards reaction is any thing but ordinary. She wept at once, with sudden wild abandonment in her sisters arms. Mrs. Mallard skipped more then just the first stage of dealing with grief, she dealt with it in a whole different way. After her sudden out burst of tears which hid her true feelings of over whelming joy she went away to her room to come to terms with her emotions without the scrutiny of her family and friends.

While shes all by herself Mrs. Mallard expresses how she really feels. She is giddy with excitement that her husband is gone. She speaks of everything in such a positive manner and is full of promise. She looks outside the window as if given a new lease on life, she see new spring life, the delicious breath of rain was in the air, she heard a distant song which some one was singing and the sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were no thoughts of what shall I do without my husband or a gut wrenching sense of loss. It was as if she was seeing life in a whole new light.

The narrator tells us; It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. Now that her husband is gone she had no one to live for but herself. She imagines all the spring and summer days she will have all to her own. This make the reader wonder how did she spend her days, if the thought of living was so miserable. Was she tied to a mundane ritual of daily chores? Did she have dreams and aspirations of being more then just a house wife?

Mrs. Mallard did love her husband sometimes often she had not. With the fact that she felt so free after Mr. Mallards death, he most likely was a very oppressive husband. Mrs. Mallard faced an internal conflict knowing that how she felt was morally wrong. She needed to suppress her feeling before she faced her sister and family friend Richard, because she didnt want them to see her true reaction to the horrible news.

Mrs. Mallard composes herself and steps out the door into the open arms of her sister. Walking down the stairs carrying herself unwittingly like the goddess of Victory. Richard was waiting for them at the bottom, slowly through the front door walked Mr. Brently Mallard, causing Mrs. Mallard to have a heart attack. No promise of a new life, just a quick and painless end to the life she had dreaded.