Character Analysis of Louise Mallard
Character Analysis Before her husband’s death she thought of her life as the same everyday and never changing. Louise Mallard is “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin 8). Mrs. Mallard was “afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin 1). The heart trouble was brought on by the stress of her wanting to control her destiny and the unhappiness in her marriage. When Chopin says, “two white slender hands,” (Chopin 10) it indicates that Mrs. Mallard does not work, or engage in manual labor. All the people in Mrs.
Mallard’s life are looking out for her and trying to take care of her, at least during the hour in which we get to know her. Knowing she has a heart problem, her sister breaks the news of Mrs. Mallard’s husband’s death as gently as possible. When Mrs. Mallard’s sister announced that Mr. Mallard has past away she was devastated, but when the grief passed she ran to her room alone. Her sister thought Mrs. Mallard locked herself in the room to grieve, but she was really rejoicing over the freedom she longed for. “There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair” (Chopin 4).
The window offers a clear view of what her life could be like with and without her husband. Spring is the time of the year when new things come to life, the new life that she will have and is awaiting for. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring of life” (Chopin 5). She could see her new life appearing with “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window” (Chopin 6). She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin 19). As for now she is free, able to do what she pleases, a new found of happiness and her life is worth living once again. She becomes a new person. She foresees the future eagerly rather than a dreadful life alone. Mrs. Mallard did not really love her husband because she cared more about herself, “And yet she had loved him sometimes” (Chopin 15). As she walks down her steps and “unwittingly carries herself like a goddess of victory down stairs” only to see her husband enter the house, but Richards was too late (Chopin 22).
Richards was late in shielding her husband from her view. Her life flashed before her eyes and destroyed the joy of what she had foreseen for her future. “The doctor said she died of heart disease of joy that kills (Chopin 22). It is mocking that Mrs. Mallard’s life ends up being violently shortened only moments after her heartfelt prayer that “life might be long” (Chopin 19). Dying gave her the freedom and happiness she desired away from her husband. References Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour. ” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. Eighth Edition. Saddle River: Prentice, 2007. 227-228
