Marriage today can be defined as a sacred bond between two people that can last a lifetime.  However, in the 19th century, that may not have been the case.  The wife in a 19th century marriage was actually more of a prisoner than a spouse.  The husband was thought of as a dominant figure and had control of almost every aspect of the marriage with the woman getting little to no say.  In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Louise Mallard is a wife in the 19th century that reacts joyfully when hearing the news of her husband’s passing, only to find out it was a mistake and he was never dead (Chopin). Mrs. Mallard was only reacting this way because marriage had trapped her and taken away a lot of basic human rights.  Chopin portrays this by using irony to have Mrs. Mallard seem astounded with joy when her husband died in a railroad disaster.  And joy isn’t the emotion she should have felt when she heard that her loved one has passed away (Chopin).

After hearing the news of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard wept initially, but once she went into her room alone, she whispered to herself,  “Free! Body and soul free” (Chopin 2).  People that read this story with no historical context would probably think that Mrs. Mallard must’ve just been insane for saying something like that to herself when she heard the news of her husband’s death, but its not that simple.  Marriage in the 19th century was actually nicknamed “Civil Death”, because of how poorly these women were treated (Conner Prairie).  Woman in marriages were severely oppressed in the 19th century.  When women were married in the 19th century, all of their possessions became property of the husband and the wife wasn’t even allowed to sell, or will her previously owned goods (Conner Prairie).  The wives themselves even became legal property of the husband and legally had to obey him.   These are basic human rights that are taken away from these women.  Which makes it a lot clearer why a woman would be upset in her marriage and possibly want to seek a different lifestyle. Furthermore “married women generally were not allowed to make contracts, devise wills, take part in other legal transactions, or control any wages they might earn” (Conner Prairie).  This explains why Mrs. Mallard feels so free when she hears the news.  Its not that she despised Mr. Mallard, but the marriage had just taken a lot of basic privileges away from her that made her feel trapped and without purpose.  Hearing the news of his death, Mrs. Mallard saw this as a second chance at life where she could be an independent woman with freedom being returned to her.  So instead of being happy for her husband’s death, she was actually just happy because she was essentially getting her life returned back to her.

In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard was said to have “heart trouble” in the beginning of the story foreshadowing her reaction to the death (Chopin 1).  Her heart trouble indicates that she wasn’t happy with her current marriage situation.  Without knowing what the meaning of heart trouble actually meant, readers would perceive it as a physical condition.  Chopin didn’t want people to know Mrs. Mallard was unhappy because that would make her joy seem justified.  By making Mrs. Mallard appear to be crazy, it shows how tormented she actually felt and how relieved she was to be free.  Mrs. Mallard had clearly been unhappy with her marriage for a while, even though it says she is young in the story.  This would mean that she had been unhappy being married ever since the beginning of the marriage.  Unfortunately, even if Louise Mallard was unhappy with her marriage, she really didn’t have another choice.  Divorce in the 19th century was not common due to the stigma of marriage being a sacred bond and the fact that the majority of people were very religious (Connor Prairie).  “Married women [weren’t even able] to obtain a divorce if they discovered that their husband had been unfaithful [to them]” (Bird Tree).   With divorce being so uncommon, most woman were bound to marriage for life which explains why Mrs. Mallard might have felt so lucky to be freed (Chopin).  This was the only possible way she could escape her marriage without being looked down upon by the rest of society.  It was her free pass and she was going to grab life by the horns and start a new era of living for herself.

When Louise Mallard heard the news that her husband was alive and it was all a misunderstanding, she herself actually passed away in a physical sense, and especially in a mental sense.  “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of the joy that kills” (Chopin 2).  She had just had such a huge swing of emotions that it literally killed her.  Furthermore, even if she hadn’t died was she really going to continue living?  She had just prepared herself for a new beginning and when she found out it wasn’t going to happen it’s too much for her to handle.  Realizing she’d have to return to her married life, she had given up all hope physically and mentally and broke down. There is also another alternative theory that it may be possible that Mrs. Mallard never saw the husband return at all and she actually died from over excitement.  “Such a view alters the current reading of the story. Specifically, it makes the irony of the doctors' statement that Louise dies of "joy that kills" resound in ways that are more complex than the common understanding of it grants (Chopin 2). A fresh understanding of just how ironic that statement is -- and of how that irony applies to Louise as well as to the other characters it is usually limited to -- shows that Chopin's story is much more radical than is usually claimed” (Cunningham). If Mrs. Mallard actually never knew that her husband was alive and died on her own then it only proves more that she wasn’t crazy and was just tormented.  She was so relieved and felt so free when her husband died that she literally couldn’t handle it.  The idea that she was going to be able to start her life over was too much for her.  If this had been known while reading the story, the irony would be a lot more clear to the reader that her death was because of freedom and not from an actual heart problem.

Mrs. Mallard’s joy of her husband’s death is understandable because of how woman in the 19th century were treated.  She wasn’t this terrible person that wanted her husband dead because of a malice intention.  She had just become happy because she realized the opportunity that had been presented to her and she was going to cease it.  She was free of her life sentence and was going to live life with freedoms she hadn’t had with her marriage.  Unfortunately, that’s not how it went and after news of her husband being alive she was the one that ended up dying.  Chopin did well with her choice of irony throughout the story and the story really shows how crazy it can drive women having their properties taken away from them and being under control of their husband their entire life.  Women in the 19th century that were married should have been treated with more respect and that’s what Chopin wanted to convey in the story.  Additionally, the women in the 19th century were expected to get married so it wasn’t like they had any other options.  Chopin just wanted to show the oppression of these women and she did so in an ironic way.  It really shows that although the wives back then may have seemed happy on the outside, they could have been sad or depressed on the inside and they weren’t able to do anything about it because of the way society viewed marriage.
