"Death of Freedom"

Throughout history women have been placed in roles they do not necessarily want to be in. Kate Chopin is speaking out about a “…women’s need for independence…” (Walker). This short story reveals unexpected twist and turns to portray a woman who finds what she wants out of life through the unfortunate death of her husband. In an off the wall route to freedom, our heroine finds what she needs in life to feel fulfilled. In the end she achieves her much needed freedom through death.

The other characters in this story’s view of Louise are unimportant compared to how Louise views herself. Louise feels trapped in a life, and marriage where her needs and wants are viewed by society as inconsequential. She is obviously unhappy, in not only her marriage, but with life itself. Not that her marriage to Brantley is necessarily bad. Her unhappiness has nothing to do with Brantley as a husband. Our narrator tells us that, “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Sipiora 200). Meaning that her heart would last far longer than she wanted it to. She would be forced to live out each grueling day unfulfilled. She felt the burden of what life and society expected of her. She saw a crime in the way, “…men and women believe they have the right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (Sipiora 200). She clearly saw herself a simple subservient creature in the society she lived. She did not see herself as living at all, but as merely surviving.

She was much surprised by the joy that she felt over her husband’s death, even though it is much expected. She is seen in taking great joy in what her life would become, just not in her role in it. Reference is made to her retreating to her “…comfortable, roomy armchair,” which is “…facing the open window…” (Sipiora 199). This chair in her room has most likely been her haven for many years. A place where she could view the world without intrusion, which is the purpose it serves at this time as well. A bystander watching the world go by and never feeling apart of. She views the comings and goings of the world outside. She takes notice of the “trees that were all aquiver with new spring life” (Sipiora 199) just as she is tremulous of the new life thrust upon her.

She embraces the newfound freedom in the death of her husband. Keeping the pretense of the dutiful wife will no longer exhaust her. She can begin live of her own free will and not only in what is expected of her. While looking out her bystander window she finds her freedom. As if her soul had been hidden in the clouds she watched the freedom roll, “she felt it, creeping out of the sky…” (Sipiora 199). What she perceived she should be in life was shattered in that one moment. It no longer matter her husband wanted of her, he was now long gone. She felt freedom embrace her, “and she opened her arms out...” to the years she was to enjoy and not dread. To be revived as one of God’s divine creatures in the “days that would be her own” (Sipiora 200).

Some could perceive the end as tragic. Chopin’s end of the story fits perfectly. Louise achieved her “individuality and autonomy” (Deter). I find the irony in her death poetic. She tasted freedom if for only a short time. She found freedom in her husband’s death and in the end freedom is what she got. It would be unfair make our heroine live once she found he was in fact alive.

Deter, Floramaria. Kate Chopin: In Search of Freedom. 11 Feb. 2007
http://classiclit.about.com/cs/articles/a/aa_insearch.htm

Sipiora, Phillip. Reading and Writing About Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Walker PhD, Nancy. Kate Chopin. 2006. 11 Feb. 2007
http://encarta.msn.com/text_761579519___0/Kate_Chopin.html