As an intelligent, independent woman, Louise Mallard understands the “right” way for
women to behave, but her internal thoughts and feelings are anything but correct. When her
sister announces that Brently has died, Louise cries dramatically rather than feeling numb, as
she knows many other women would. Her violent reaction shows that she is an emotional,
demonstrative woman.
When her husband supposedly died, Mrs. Mallard has a totally new perception to life.
Although the trees outside her window had always been there, for the first time, she realizes
just how beautiful the landscape is. She looks at the clouds and they seem to reflect her story
so well for she sees “patches of the blue sky showing itself here and there after the storm of
grief had spent itself.” Mrs. Mallard does not receive the news of her husband’s death with
the characteristic grief that any widow would have.
On the contrary, she cries only for a while and then seats back in the privacy of her room to
savour the moment. When she mourns, she is not mourning due to the grief of losing her
husband but due to the overwhelming realization that she has “abandoned” by her husband.
This portrays a selfish nature in her since even when her husband is dead; all she was
thinking was how he had abandoned her.
Mrs. Mallard is a woman that is suffering in marriage. We realize that she was not very
optimistic about her married life. The night prior to the “death” of her husband, she had
quietly prayed for her life to be short. She had reached a point of disillusionment and would
gladly welcome death as an option out of the marriage. When she learns that her husband
had perished in the train accident, she first reacts by weeping due to her loss but after the
moment of grief ebbs away, she suddenly realizes that she has been freed from her
marriage. She makes a prayer that is opposite to what she had made only a few hours prior
to this, praying for a long life.
From this, she thought that marriage was a place where two people thought that they have
all the right to impose their rights on the other person. To her, this was a big misconception
and as the story reveals, it was probably the main reason for her suffering in marriage. She
most definitely did not like the way her husband treated her. Marriage was like a bondage to
her and when she receives the news that her husband was dead, she is happy that she is at
last free. Mrs. Mallard can be said to represent many marriages in society where many
people are not enjoying the marriage but for varied reasons, they don’t want to get out of
the marriage.
Louise Mallard is the character in the story that is subject to masculine discourse. From the
very onset of the story, she is introduced as Mrs. Mallard and Chopin simply uses “she” when
referring to her for the rest of the story. In fact, the next time that Chopin uses a name to
reference Mrs. Mallard is after she proclaims that she is now “free! Body and soul free! ” This
shows the change that happened in the perception of life in Mrs. Mallard’s mind. She now
stretches her hands to welcome the new life of freedom as we see her saying that from now
on, she will have no one to live for but herself.
The freedom is short lived as we realize when Mr. Mallard comes back. The language used in
the story makes it clear by re-establishing the fact that she was a wife. The realization that
her freedom was in fact a mirage is too much for her that it proved to be fatal. This further
reveals the disillusionment she had as far as her marriage was concerned. The previous day,
she had been sad and praying that her life ends soon but when she was told of her husband’s
death, her mood changed immediately as she suddenly realized that she had a new lease of
life. While she is still thinking about her apparent freedom, her husband’s return home
something that makes her spirit sink again for reality hits her hard that she is still trapped in
her marriage.
Mrs. Mallard is portrayed a frail woman. We see this right form the onset of the story when
her medical condition is introduced. However, her frailty is not just of body but also of soul
and this is what prompts Richard to try to the best of his ability to protect her. The author
uses says that Mrs. Mallard sobs as a “child who has cried itself to sleep.” The phrase reveals
that Mrs. Mallard was a woman of a weak will. She is also described as having very frail
hands. It is her frailty that probably led to her eventual death.
Mrs. Mallard’s relationship with her husband explains the kind of shaky relationship that the
women of the society had with their husbands. She is quick to reveal that in fact, her
husband was a loving man who always looked upon her with love yet quite on the contrary,
she seldom felt love for him. Her husband is portrayed as man that imposed on her and she
is portrayed as a woman that had little choice but to obey her husbands will. The irony that
plays out is that although Brently loved her wife, he gives little or no concern to her
happiness.
The absence of children presents an interesting dynamic in the story following the death of
Mrs. Mallard’s husband. She was now free to carry on with life as a free woman again. She
had no husband to live for and she had no children too. That offered her many new options
in life. Maybe she could even look for another husband, one that she loved, or maybe she
had had enough of marriage and she would leave alone for the rest of her life.
When the doctors examine her, they all concur that she had died as result of the “joy that
kills.” It was not normal for a widow to rejoice over her husband’s departure. It was expected
that his resurrection would make her happy; happy to the point of getting a heart attack.
Mrs. Mallard is used to reveal the role of a widow in the society who was expected to grieve
after the death of her husband.
The narrator shows the irony of life in that Mrs. Mallard was happy that she had eventually
found her freedom in the death of her husband, but her husband actually returns home safe
and sound which terminates her quite celebration. Ironically, the one who was thought to
die is back alive while, Mrs. Mallard who believed that she would live long enjoying her new
found freedom dies.
The entire story is founded on how Mrs. Mallard suffered. She suffered due to a troubled
marriage which gave her no joy and she suffered due to the sickness that she had. The kind
of suffering that she goes through is used by the author to depict what the woman of that
society had to endure in marriages. The narrator reveals her passion on the plight of women
in the society when Mrs. Mallard realizes that she is nothing but happy in the marriage. The
character of Mrs. Mallard is used to illustrate that men oppressed women in marriage.
(1253 words)