Story of an Hour

In Story of an Hour, I don't think there was a way to tell what the end of the story might be. I thought it would end up with her dying of sadness of his death, but that wasn't the case. In the story several things are said about the way that she rejoices after his death. Not because she was happy he was gone, but because now she has the freedom she has always wanted. At first when she hears of her husbands death she "wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms." (Pg 193) She then goes upstairs and sits in her armchair. She sinks in and then notices the "delicious breath of rain was in the air." (Pg 193) Her heart starts beating faster at her newfound freedom as she whispers, "free, free, free!" Although the story makes it seem like she did not care for him at all, she clearly did. In the passage on pg 194 she says that "she knew she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead." There really wasn't a way to know what the end of the story would bring with all the ironies in it. When her husband arrives home she realizes that she will have to go back to the old ways and won't have her newfound freedom anymore.