Is it possible to die from a broken heart? In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," the main character, Mrs. Mallard, finds out that a train accident killed her husband. Prior to her finding out about his death, the narrator tells the reader that she had a health condition, but does not clarify what kind of heart condition it is. After the main character's sister, Josephine, informs her of her husband's death, she runs upstairs and locks herself in a bedroom with an open window. Whilst staring outside, Mrs. Mallard has the strangest feeling of freedom overtake her body. Her sister checks up on her while standing outside the door, and Mrs. Mallard could not be happier with the revelation of finally being free from her marriage and to her marital obligations inside the house. Chopin uses lots of imagery, internal conflict, and foreshadowing in her story. 

Imagery plays a huge part in this story. Mrs. Mallard's "gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky" while thinking about her younger days when she was happy and had a spark in her eyes when thinking about her future (8). Nowadays she has "dull stare in her eyes" because of her marriage to Brently. By staring out the window, she sees this beautiful landscape versus the tiny little house that she has been confined to for the majority of her marriage. The house is described as small and suffocating because Louise sees the vast open land outside the window, but she never leaves the house because she is a housewife. This imagery shows the reader how confided Louise is inside her marriage because the house represents her marriage while the vast of land outside the window represents her future now that her husband is dead. Mrs. Mallard struggles internally with how to interpret her newfound freedom.

Finding out her husband is dead causes Mrs. Mallard to face the reality of becoming a widow. While she says, "'And yet she had loved him--sometimes.  Often she had not.  What did it matter!  What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!'" she is realizing that her constant battle to love her husband has finally ended. She no longer has to dread his homecoming because he will not be coming home ever again (15). After first finding out about her husband's death, she tried "to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been," yet she knew that she could not do it because it was something she had craved for many years (10). While she craved her freedom, she knew she did not have it in her heart to leave her husband.

Heart conditions either can be fatal or lived with. In the case of Mrs. Mallard, everyone knows she "was afflicted with a heart trouble" (1). Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard's heat condition as an example of foreshadowing as to how she will eventually die. Josephine and Richard both exert copious amounts of compassion when telling Mrs. Mallard of her husband's death because they know of her heart condition. While Chopin states that Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, she never actually tells the reader what the heart condition is. It could be something verdy easily managed or a severe heart defect, but the reader must infer from the way that Mrs. Mallard died that it was a severe heart condition because people do not typically die from finding out that their husband is still alive. The doctors also are very nondescript in telling how she died, but simply saying, "she had died of heart disease -- of joy that kills" (23). By using Josephine and Richard's concern for Mrs. Mallard's heart condition, Chopin is foreshadowing that her illness will be the death of her.

Chopin uses of imagery, internal conflict, and foreshadowing to allow her readers to each have a different interpretation of the story. The open window, Mrs. Mallard's internal dialogue about her marriage or lack thereof, and her heart condition are all examples of Chopin's own interpretation of the story. 

