This is the story of Mrs. Mallard, who is told that her husband has died. At very the beginning of the story, the author stresses the fact that Mrs. Mallard “was afflicted with a heart trouble”. This makes her sister, Josephine, to tell her this bad news gently. However, her ‘affliction’ has a double meaning, because it might also be related with something mental and her ‘heart trouble’ could be related with love. Although the author plays with this double meaning, it is clarified in the end of the story, when the doctors say ‘she had died of heart disease’. In my opinion, the metaphorical meaning of Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble could be associated with the idea that she felt somehow ‘repressed’ in her marriage, which seems obvious when, after being told about her husband’s death, she feels “free!, body and soul free!”. Therefore, it is true that she had a heart affliction, this one related with love – and marriage.

Louise is told about her husband’s death in a gentle way because such piece of impacting news may damage the physical and mental health of any happy wife in love with her husband. Therefore, Mrs. Mallard is supposed to r

However, Brently Mallard was not a bad man. Louise remembers her husband as a kind and tender man. Josephine and Richards also remembers him as a good person and a tender friend. She will cry when seeing her dead husband, but she is happy about the idea of the death of his marriage. So, she is sad about one death but happy about the other one.

In the end of the story, we discover that Brently Mallard was not actually dead, and when Louise sees her husband in the house, she dies from a shock, due to the fact that she suffered from a heart disease. This shock was understood by the doctors, who were men – as no women doctors existed in that time – as a “joy that kills”. They thought that the happiness of seeing Brently alive made her heart get worse, so she died. This shows the male conception of marriage. However, the doctors were completely wrong. The shock was caused by the realization that she was not going to be free, as she wanted to be. She saw all her hope disappear all of a sudden and, when she apparently had a long life of freedom ahead, all is over for her.

This feeling of exhaustion of her soul changes when she opens the window. Through the window, she sees some trees “that were all aquiver with the new spring life”, she can breathe the rain and hear a peddler cry, the melody of a song and the twitter of some sparrows. It contrasts with the sadness and gloom existing in her house and, at first, in her room. A second reading of this paragraph makes clear the idea of life coming from outside to Louise’s room. After breathing this new ‘draught of life’ coming from outside, she realizes she is free, which makes her soul not be exhausted any more, and this also reaches her body.

Mrs. Mallard’s face bes

Some topics in this essay:
Story Hour”, Louise Death, Brently Mallard, Josephine Richards, Chopin Chopin, husband’s death, soul exhausted, told husband’s death, , husband’s death feels, told husband’s, cry seeing, coming outside, freedom self-assertion, related love, contrasts life, supposed feel, brently mallard,