As I was reading through, at first I couldn't help but to feel somewhat sad for Mrs. Mallard. She believes that she loses her husband and all the while you think she is truck with grief. And she may well have been for a moment.
My favorite line would have to be, "And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not." I just couldn't help but to giggle at that revelation. I think it is because you do not normally expect someone to admit that they did not love the one that they are with.
Her reaction to her husband's apparent death is what you would think someone in shock would do, until she starts saying "free" over and over again. Maybe this could have been her wake-up call to actually start living the life that she had wanted to truly live and to not be tied down by the expectations that were thrust upon her. To begin again in some fashion.
The ending had me completely surprised, which is something that I really liked about it. I was half expecting her to go off into the sunset (for lack of a better term) and live a more adventurous life, one in which she didn't feel stifled and she was free. I was not expecting her husband to have arrived at the end of the story and for her to die at the end. It was a great surprise. I had to read it a couple of times to make sure that the ending was going to stay the same. I would love to be able to write a story that not only has such beautiful and rich texture to it, but that also leaves the reader saying, "did that really just happen?"
Exactly, that is the idea. To strive to write a story with the same impact and economy. A wonderful challenge.
ReplyDeleteShe dies, the story says, "of a joy that kills." Astonishing!