Dying from a broken heart.

Stacey McDonald

February 6, 2015

English 102

Reading Response #1

            Throughout all three of the short stories, the unhappy marriages caught me by somewhat of a surprise. Particularly the one told in “The Story of an Hour.”

            In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Louise Mallard is introduced as a woman that has just lost her husband, and since she has heart trouble, no one is quite sure how to break this news to her. I expected what came next- sobbing, screaming, etc. However when she suddenly took a deep breath and began to mutter “free” to herself over and over again, I was taken aback. This was a woman who felt neglected for most of her marriage, and was thrilled that she wouldn’t have to suffer in silence anymore. Even though she had loved her husband, she was well aware of the fact that he had never felt the same about her; at least not that he had shown.  Suddenly she is free from her oppressor, and full of hope for her days ahead.  When she gathers her thoughts and finally opens the door to her sister, she probably felt reborn, to say the least. And she definitely never expected her husband to come walking through the door.

            I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to have to wake up every day in bed with a man like that. However there were certain experiences in my own life (involving my mother and stepfather,) that I found myself being able to relate to what she went through.  When you live a life in the shadow of someone that doesn’t seem to care if you’re there or not, the idea of a life without them can seem too good to be true. If that dream suddenly becomes your reality, why would you ever desire to go back to the nightmare? At the end of the story I found myself wondering what Mr. Mallard had done to Louise over the course of their marriage to make her feel such a way to begin with. If I had to go back to a life that left me feeling so small, maybe I would be too overcome with sadness to continue. The doctors may have said it was heart disease, but I think that Louise died from a broken heart, knowing that she could not, after just an hour of imagining what her life would be like, free of her husband, go back to living in the shadow of a man that couldn’t seem to be bothered with her.

          You see a similar situation in "A Painful Case," between Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinico. Mr. Duffy is  man that has spent his entire life avoiding involvement of any emotional nature with another person, until he meets Mrs. Sinico at the opera one night. She is a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, with a man that thinks if he doesn't want her, there's no reason that anyone else would. They begin to see each other on a regular basis, and the second that she shows Mr. Duffy affection he pushes her away, and I think that's because since he has never had a romantic relationship, he has no idea how he is supposed to react. Time goes on and he returns to his lonely life, only to read in the newspaper four years later that Mrs. Sinico died in an apparent suicide, throwing herself in front of an oncoming train. Just then does Mr. Duffy see the ramifications of what he had done. She had been his soul mate all along. And when he pushed her away, she had to retreat into a life of loneliness, and it became too much for her to bear.