A women's dreams dead

As a wife, sister, and friend, it is difficult to be women some days. We feel over frustrated about small mishaps. We don’t feel this way because we want to but sometimes men just drive us to become that way, like in “The story of an hour” by Kate Chopin a women’s husband dies but instead of being sad she is a little relieved.


Mrs. Louise Mallard has a heart condition and as she is at home her sister Josephine and her friend Richards comes to tell her the news that her husband has been killed in a train accident. Louise acts much differently than I would if I had just found out that my husband had been killed. As I began reading the story I was upset that a wife had lost her husband, I couldn’t imagine hearing the news of my husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard cries a little in front of Josephine then locks herself in her room to sit and stare out the window.

In the room she can be upset or happy about the accident, no one can see her. She can feel think about the “death” of her husband anyway she wants. As she sits in the rocking chair and stares out the window she feels something coming toward her but she is not sure what it is, she can’t see it but she can feel it. My feelings are maybe that this feeling is her wishing she could feel sorry about her husband’s death but she just feels happy and relieved. This story talks about the couple but it doesn’t say how their marriage was or how they treated each other so we never really know why Louise feels the way she does about Brently Mallard’s death.

“Free, Free,” is repeated over and over by Louise. I was shocked that she felt free from her marriage. Mrs. Mallard maybe had an unhappy marriage and finally it was over. She states that she can start living for herself, doing what makes her happy and not what her husband wanted her to do anymore. As a child growing up my mother always put my sister and I before herself, she always bought us new toys or clothes and never purchased anything she wanted.

Women tend to put everyone else’s needs and wants ahead of their own. I think that Mrs. Mallard was in an unhappy marriage that her husband never knew about. She may have put his wants and needs before her own and now it is her time to do the things she has wanted to do. When she walks out her room after thinking about Brently’s death she begins to walk down the stairs when a key unlocks their home and her husband walks in. Mrs. Louise Mallard dies of a heart disease after her husband walk through the door. The story says it was “a joy that kills,” which makes me think what that means. She became so happy of the life that she had wanted so long and she has her time when her husband comes home instead to his wife who dies. He never even knew that he was considered dead.