Question

How does Mrs. Mallard’s death in the conclusion contribute to the story’s overall meaning? Cite evidence in your answer.

Answer 1

The ending of "The Story of an Hour" is a classic fake-out. The event that starts the story off – Mr. Mallard's death – is completely undone in the conclusion. It's the opposite of a linear life story because he starts out dying and ends up alive. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mallard's life, which her friends and family tried so hard to protect at the beginning, is lost at the end.

Answer 2

Answer:

Mrs. Mallard's death seems to paint a larger picture of how women in general, and married women in particular, have no freedom and the lack of their own identity and space.

Explanation:

Kate Chopin's short story The Story of an Hour tells the story of Mrs. Mallard, who seemingly had been without any freedom to be her own person under her husband's authority. And that was why she was happy and excited to hear of his death, with the woman thinking of her future where she will be now, her own person and do what she likes.

The position of being a wife seems to suffocate her, for she exclaimed that she is finally "free, free, free!" after learning of her husband's death. In the later passages, we find her thinking "there would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature." From now on, "she would live for herself", which seems to paint a bigger picture of the condition of women in those times. But with the death of Mr. Mallard, all those restrictions are now gone.

But the ending shows Mr. Mallard returned safely and gave her such a shock that she died of a heart attack. The others thought that the shock of getting her husband safe was too much for her heart to take, but in reality, it was the realization that she is back to her former self was too much to take that her heart gave out. Her death again signifies that women have no such freedom to do anything, which is also why Mrs. Mallard's death was caused by.