Essay On Mrs. Mallard In Kate Chopin's Story Of An Hour

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Kate Chopin’s, The Story of an Hour, presents the wildly fascinating and intriguing character of Mrs. Mallard. On the surface she appears as an unfortunate widower who just happened to be endowed with a terrible heart defect. Yet, not all is just so simple. Her problems delve so much deeper than they initially appear. Her heart troubles shed light on the social cages of her inner soul. The so-called happy relationship with her husband infers a confining relationship in which she does not feel free. The question as to whether or not she was marching down the stairs to her not leading to simple her victory nor her death, but actually both at the same time. Mrs. Mallard brings out a darker and deeper meaning to a story, which had initially appeared a bit too simple.

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The heart represents the center and source of all love and affection. With that being said, the idea that Mrs. Mallard has “heart trouble” should, in turn, be understood as something more than just being simply unhealthy. If Chopin’s aim was to emphasis her ailments, she’d be more likely to give her ulcers, or some sort of allergy and yet, she chooses the heart as Mrs. Mallard’s chosen ailment. During the late nineteenth-century the condition, which is often described as “heart trouble” usually, refers to troubles with one’s emotional heart. This only reinforces the idea that her heart troubles lies not in her body, but in her marriage. Even if Mrs. Mallard were not sick, there would still be a fair bit of “heart trouble” of the emotional sort. “Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering”, quite obviously, the emotions Mrs. Mallard expresses in this chosen moment are both powerful and strong. Yet, they are almost too strong to be expressed for Mrs. Mallard can only whisper them. The idea that she utters these words only after her husband has died expresses the idea of oppression from her husband but not explicitly him for proof from the multiple times in which
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