its existence. When Mrs. Mallard is finally offered the opportunity to throw off the burdens of marriage and accept a new life of independence, she “breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (440). This suggest a strong contrast between Mrs. Mallard’s view of the position of the married and non-married woman. In one case she would almost rather die; in the other, she embraces life with zeal. This truly proves that Howard’s characterization of the roles and duties of the nineteenth century married woman are precise and well reflected in the case of Mrs. Mallard.Howard’s argument falters, however, when she fails to recognize the truly radical feminist scope of Chopin’s characters and the messages that she seeks to impart. For example, at one point Howard asserts that “Chopin makes no suggestion that Mrs. Mallard would not mourn for her husband, a man she loved, a man apparently cut off by a railroad accident in the prime of his life” (1). While it is probably true that Chopin did not wish to alarm readers by directly declaring that Mrs. Mallard did not or would not mourn for her dead husband, something really is amiss when Mrs. Mallard “did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” (439). The fact that Mrs. Mallard heard the news differently than other women would have foreshadows her eminent capacity for independence. The wording here is also important: she was not unable to accept its significance. This suggests that she accepted it quickly, which in turn suggests a lack of real mourning. Therefore, Mrs. Mallard’s feminist p...
