In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard receives news of her husband being involved in an accident which caused his death. Mrs. Mallard had a strange reaction to her husband’s death, she first felt devastated but then began feeling relieved. She felt relieved that she didn’t have to please him or worry about what he thought of her. In the inauguration of “Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard obtains the news of her husband’s death. She is shattered with this news, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.” (pg. 236, para. 3, lines 2-3). She did not know how to act in response to her husband’s death. As soon as she got a hold of herself “she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” (pg. 236, para. 3, lines 3-4.) Mrs. Mallard was stunned as to what was happening, she could not cope with the devastating news. She “stood, facing the open window” (pg. 236, para. 4, line 1), waiting for a sort of sign, when suddenly “there was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.” (pg. 236, para. 9, line 1). At this point Mrs. Mallard “recognize (d) this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back” (pg. 236, para. 10, lines 1-2). When she finally stopped fighting “a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips.” (pg.236, para. 11, lines 1-2). She repeated the word “over and over under her breath: “Free, free, free!” (pg. 236 para. 11, line 2). She finally felt free, she did not stop to think “if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her.” (pg.236, para. 12, line 1). Mrs. Mallard felt relieved that “there would be no one to live for her” (pg. 237, para. 14, and line 1). She no longer had to depend on anyone but herself, “she would live for herself” (pg. 237, para. 14, and lines 1-2). Mrs. Mallard’s had mix emotions about her husband’s death. She felt “Free! Body and saw the kind, tender hands folded in death” (pg. 236, para. 14, lines 1-2). “She had loved him---sometimes. Often she had not” (pg. 237, para. 15, lines 1). She loved him but was pleased that he had perished. In the end of “Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard comes to learn that her husband’s death was mistaken. Mr. Mallard “had been far from the scene of accident” (pg. 237, para. 21, lines 3). The joy of her husband’s arrival was not what killed her, it was the fact that she was no longer free, “the doctors came and they said she had died of heart disease----of joy that kills.” (pg. 237, para. 22, lines 1). In some way Mrs. Mallard is somehow free, she is not free in body but her soul was set free by her death.

Work Cited Chopin, Kate. “Story of an Hour.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2007. 432-34. Print.