“The Joy that Kills”

In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” the opening scene revels that Louise has just been informed of her husband’s untimely death. Before the family informs Louise of her husband’s death, they discussed how the news should be given as they didn’t want to worsen Louise’s known heart condition. Louise Mallard experiences many unexpected emotions upon hearing of her husband’s untimely death. The three most apparent emotions she experiences are grief, sense of freedom, and devastation.
In the beginning she responds to the news as all of us would, the story states “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms”(1). Grief is the most common response to bad news. Although short lived, we can see her grief is very powerful. By expressing her grief early on, it allows other emotions to be expressed later on. If her grief had been repressed, she would have been unable to express her sense of freedom. Furthermore she would not have felt devastation be...