Mrs. Mallard’s freedom

  • We really wanted to spend more time looking at the ending of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” What do we understand about Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom in the story? Does she have freedom at the end of the story?

I believe that it is safe to assume that Mrs. Mallard was too overwhelmed by the thought of freedom due to the fact that she was deprived of it for so long. She had, up until the moment she was given the news of her husband’s alleged death, been emotionally suffocated by him. Seen when the narrator describes the state of Mrs. Mallards’ face as being one, ” whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength”, we can assume that the lines on her face were being repressed by Mr. Mallard, and that those lines were made by her smile, that for years Mrs. Mallard was not happy throughout the course of her marriage. But the lines on her face could also refer to Mrs. Mallard’s physical appearance, wrinkles, and this line could be referring to the social exceptions that demand she force herself to look beautiful and young for the sake of her husband’s happiness. “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself… 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.” There was a clear shift in tone in this short story from mournful to a sigh of relief, Mrs. Mallard at first sign of news cried her eyes out, then locked herself in a room to be alone, only to be confronted by this idea of what now? Then her attitude begins to shift realizing the benefits of her husband passing and claiming freedom as her own. And she did not hate her husband rather she saw that as long as he was alive she could not be free, “she knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.” By the end of the story Mrs. Mallard is free she dies before being informed that her husband is alive, so in her mind she was free, and her freedom is shown through a change in how she is addressed. From the beginning she was introduced as Mrs. Mallard, and it is usual in “traditional circumstances” that upon marriage the woman takes the man’s last name. So she is only known as being someone’s wife. She continues to be addressed throughout the story as Mrs. Mallard, until her sister Josephine addresses her as “Louise” shedding her title, “Mrs”. She was no longer a wife, shed the title of “Mrs.”, and she was able to reclaim her identity through being called by her name. Which made her free in the end.

https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/

6 thoughts on “Mrs. Mallard’s freedom

  1. Jahanzeb Siddiqy

    I agree with the point that one can assume that Mrs. Mallard was overwhelmed with the idea of being freed of the shackles of marriage. This can be found in various parts of the reading and also if we look at the concept of marriage during the time this work was written. When the author speaks of Mrs. Mallards reaction to her husbands death, she says: “She did not hear this story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept it’s significance.” When people hear of the death of a loved one, they are often initially in a state of denial before they finally accept the news. Mrs. Mallard came to terms with reality straight away as the death of her husband may have meant her finally achieving her long-awaited freedom. If you take into account the historical context of this reading, this may very well be the case. At the time, marriage was not viewed as a partnership but rather as a legal contract binding the wife to her husband through obedience and loyalty. Because of this, Mrs. Mallard may have felt repressed through her marriage and her husbands death meant the end of her repression.

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  2. Mahnoor Sheikh Post author

    That is a great point, Mrs. Mallard’s freedom is personified by her actions. For instance, her immediate acceptance of the death of her husband, it is almost as if the more she diverts from the social expectations placed on her from monogamy. The more free she actually becomes.

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  3. Mahnoor Sheikh Post author

    That is a great point, Mrs. Mallard’s freedom is personified by her actions. For instance, her immediate acceptance of the death of her husband, it is almost as if the more she diverts from the social expectations placed on her from monogamy. The more free she actually becomes.

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  4. Madycyn

    Obviously through out the story we get the understanding that Mrs.Mallard was very unhappy and felt trapped with her marriage. I agree that how she took the news of her husbands death is strange because even when a woman has lost her husband she can still be in denial that someone that made her so miserable is finally gone. She accepted the fact that he’s finally dead and she was able to feel better about herself. In my opinion I do feel like she has freedom in the end. She was no longer Just someone’s wife. She was Louise. Plus she died before knowing her husband was alive. That’s the way to go. She didn’t owe him anything. She was happy and she was okay. Overall, when people go throw hi pain they do it alone. Although you may have people around you to help but your the only one who feels it so having claimed her name back and feeling good about his death then that’s her happiness and she’s the only one that can feel that.

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  5. Tyra

    I agree with the statement about Mrs. Mallard being overwhelmed with the fact that she was free since she hasn’t been free in such a long time. Throughout her marriage she didn’t feel as free as she wanted to be which is why when finding out about her husband’s death she went through so many different emotions. She feels grief at first then starts feeling a sense of relief. Towards the end of the story she shows a sign of victory basically a weight lifted off her shoulders just to find out her husband was actually alive and that leads to her death which explains the line, “The joy that kills.”

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  6. Jody R. Rosen

    So many great ideas here and in the other post about the same topic! It’s great to see that one 2-page story can generate so much discussion.

    Mahnoor starts us off with some close readings of lines from the story. This is a really important technique that we all want to practice. Thinking carefully about the detail of “Mrs” transitioning to a first name requires that we read carefully, pay attention to how that character is referred to by the narrator and other characters, and also requires us to think about the cultural importance of the detail. We could use this reading to also inform our discussion of Mrs. Wright/Minnie Foster in “A Jury of Her Peers,” paying attention to how she is depicted as a person in possession of herself versus how she is depicted as a wife.

    When we read about “the joy that kills,” whose idea is that? Does that even matter? This gets us into thinking about who knows what in the story, whose ideas we have access to, who else has access to those ideas, and what the role of the narrator is. We can make it a practice this semester to think about who knows what, and where we are positioned in relation to that knowledge or lack of knowledge.

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