The Story of an Hour

The final gift of freedom came to Mrs. Mallard a little too late. She had been repressed by her husband Brently, a kind but seeminly dominant figure who she felt shackled and imprisoned by. The news of his death was not the death of her, but the excitment of being "free" and able to live her life as she would, without him in it. Could she live freely? It was an overwhelming thought, and apparently more than her heart condition would allow. She herself would be the one to die, not knowing that her Brently in fact did not die on the train wreck as originally thought, but was alive and well. He escaped death, while she was ushered directly into deaths grip. She could have lived forever with the heart condition; a broken and abandoned heart, but a heart filled with joy was more than she could bear.

Cynthia Strader