Mrs. Mallard as a Scapegoat of Feminism

Louise Mallard in "The Story of an Hour" shows an indescribable joy after overcoming the sad news of her husband's death. Instead of feeling gloomy and finding the environment to seem different, which people usually feel after being informed of a loved one's death:

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the cluds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window (267).

After being filled with the joy, she descends the stairs like the "goddess of Victory" (269). This doesn't mean she did not love him, however, the feeling of lack of freedom by being married to Mr. Mallard was larger than the love she had for him. This concept goes with the feminist movement breaking out during the time. Kate Chopin describes how men would possibly not come up with ideas that (some) women are restrained. The doctors, who are most likely men at this time, concludes that she had died of "joy that kills," of the happiness she was assumed to have been consumed by when she saw her husband, whom she believed to have been dead. However, Louis Mallard's death overall seems to create an argument for and against the feminism movement. Her death could have been the punishment for the ecstasy she had felt after hearing her husband's death, or it could have meant to prevent her from further sufferage-from going through the life deprived of freedom, again. The perception of her death is another way of presenting the feminism in this short story.