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The Story of the Next Hour

Mallard's contrary emotions. She receives the news of her husband's death in the house she shares with him. The house represents the boundaries that marriage has placed on Louise Mallard as well as society's expectations as to the role of a wife. Louise retreats to her room, closes the door and is drawn to the open window. Her journey begins as she stares out the window and notices as if for the first time the sights, sounds and smells surrounding her. The trees are "all aquiver with new spring life- (171). She notices the clouds, but focuses on "one of those patches of blue sky- (171). Oddly she focuses not on death, but on life. .
             The closed door and opened window are significant. The closed door places a barrier between Louise and her sister, who is imploring her to open it. On one side of the door is her repressed past and on the other is her new life of independence. The open window is symbolic of her new life which will be "Free, free, free!- of the restrictions and expectations of marriage (172).
             In the privacy of her room Mrs. Mallard contemplates her conflicting feelings towards her husband and her views on marriage. She is realistic about her feelings for Mr. Mallard: "She had loved him "sometimes. Often she had not- (172) and acknowledges she will cry again when she sees him in his casket. Mrs. Mallard's thoughts drift to marriage: intentions, kind or cruel, and "the powerful will bending men and women believe they have a right to impose- upon each other (172). Men and women are not opposed here, but universal in their feelings of dissatisfaction with life and love and the struggle to persevere in spite of conflicting emotions. The narrator even hints that perhaps Mr. Mallard feels the same marital suffocation as Mrs. Mallard when we are told that he "never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead- (172).
             Mrs. Mallard's conflict in the room is that between fantasy and reality, also known as the grass is always greener' syndrome.


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