Question

In paragraphs 5 through 9, how do the details about the natural setting outside of Mrs. Mallard’s room relate to her emotional state? Point to specific evidence from the text to support your response.

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

Mrs. Mallard is the main character in Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour". Louise Mallard has always been a fragile woman whose heart condition may kill her in case she is surprised or shocked. In addition, she has always been a subservient wife, constantly attached and dependent on her husband.

However, something changes inside her when she is told the news of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard locks herself up in her room to mourn the loss but, while in there, she looks out her open window:

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were 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.

The natural setting outside the window represents the new life and spirit Mrs. Mallard is about to discover. The smell of rain, the patches of blue sky here and there, the distant song, they all evoke her own mental state. They all represent the happiness of finding herself free. Spring, specially, always evokes the start of something new - a new chance, a new life. Mrs. Mallard realizes that, without her husband, there is nothing holding her down. She is finally liberated to be herself, to do as she wishes.