Character Of Mrs Mallard example essay topic

In Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour", the author shows us the response of a young woman to her husband's presumed death. Before the news, the widow, Mrs. Mallard, felt trapped in a situation she found to be inescapable. Her marriage made her feel as though her will wasn't really her own, that she wasn't really free. However, when the news of her husband's death reaches her, she finally begins to feel that she has a chance to be free. During her mingled exaltation and grief, it occurred to her that " [there] would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature" (189).

Although he only appears for a brief moment at the end of the story, we learn about the character of B rently Mallard very vividly through the reaction of his wife to his apparent death. Despite her husband's kind and loving nature towards her, he most likely treated her as though a father would a little girl because he believed it would be in her best interests. "A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime... ". (189). We learn from the actions of the rest of the characters, including Mrs. Mallard, the main character, exactly who each one is.

In fact, the supporting characters of Josephine and Richards seem to have no idea of what really is going on with Mrs. Mallard. They see her as a widow grieving herself to the point of illness. When she dies, they don't see it as a death in reaction to some great disappointment, they see it as "joy that kills" (190). In their minds, Mrs. Mallard was so elated at seeing her husband alive again that her heart couldn't take it and she just died. In reality, I believe the renewed drive to live was crushed out of her at that moment, where she realized that her chance for a free life just wasn't going to happen. Josephine, Mrs. Mallard's sister is a more traditional character for the particular time period in which this story was written.

While she and Mrs. Mallard may not seem so different on the surface, at the heart of the matter she is almost a foil. Josephine expects her sister to make herself sick with grief over the loss of her husband. After all, is not a woman to live but for her husband? Or at least, that was according to most of the thinking at the time. Instead, Mrs. Mallard was "drinking in a very elixir of life" (190). She may have even been more healthy at that moment than she ever had with her husband.

A person's level of happiness has been known to affect health, after all. Chopin uses false hope to truly identify the character of Mrs. Mallard. Where she'd once been dreading a long life, she began to hope for it upon the death of her husband. However, when she finds out that her husband isn't really dead, she loses the will for a long life and simply dies right there.

Bibliography

Day, Funk, and McMahan. Literature and the Writing Process. 7th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005.