Most definitely. Let us just briefly remind ourselves of
what happens in this classic story that features an incredible epiphany. Mrs. Mallard,
having been told of the death of her husband, quickly realises, after an initial
outburst of grief and sadness, that actually she is now free to experience liberty and
enjoy life without her marriage and her realtionship to her husband hindering her. Note
what the text tells us about her feelings and what she is
experiencing:
There would be no one to live for her during
those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending
hers in that blind persistence with which mena nd women believe they have a right to
impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature.
Mrs. Mallard
experiences an epiphany about how she has lived her life up until this point, and in
particular, how her marriage had actually oppressed her and prevented her from being
truly free.
However, reality in the form of her husband
reimposes itself harshly upon her in the final lines of the story, as her husband
reappears, and thanks to a miscommunication had been reported as dead when he was very
much alive. Having tasted, however briefly of the freedom that she thought was hers to
savour for the rest of her life, Mrs. Mallard dies as a response to the shock of having
that freedom snatched away from her once again. In spite of her epiphany and changes and
discoveries, reality returns her to her starting point, which is intolerable for her,
resulting in her death.
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