"The Story Of An Hour"

Ironic tragedies, geez how I love them. Mrs. Mallard realizes she is free to have her own life then in a heartbeat it is taken from her. It seems like she had resigned herself to living a life with a man she loved only sometimes. Whether in 1894 or today one sad truth is that there will always be people who for one reason or another stay in unfulfilling marriages. Is it because of an individuals fear of failure or because of a fear of how they may be perceived after a divorce or perhaps something else? She grieves for him when hearing of his death but only for a short time. As the feeling of freedom begins to come out it sounds like she feels guilty. However once she gives in to the feeling of now being free and allows it to overtake her she looks forward to a long life when only the previous day she had "shuddered" thinking of one. And still I think she was even more unhappy than she realized. Since the feeling of now being free is so strong one may gather that she had felt deeply trapped in her life and marriage and it is only when she is free that she realizes how unhappy she was. After all she is now "drinking in a very elixir of life" through her open window and she has an "exalted perception" which allows her to not think of her new joy as "monstrous". These phrases both hint at not only her past despair but the level of her new joy.