"The Story of an Hour," by Kate Chopin, focuses on the character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, and one very sensitive hour in her life. Louise Mallard, who had a weakening heart condition, appeared to live an apathetic and frail life, until she received the news that her husband had died in a tragic railroad accident. Keeping in mind her frailty, Mrs. Mallard's sister, Josephine, gently informs her of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard upon hearing the news broke into tears, after some time she went to her room to be alone with her thoughts. Like Mrs. Mallard women in the 1900's had very little control over their own lives, the men in the family made most if not all financial decisions for the family along with most other major decisions. Many women felt like they had little control over their own lives. What did this mean for Mrs. Mallard now? What would happen? Sitting alone in her room, she looked out at the sky with a dull expression. All of a sudden it hit her, it was joy. She was free. She knew there would still be sadness but right now she was thinking about the fact that she was free. She could make her own decisions, she could live for herself. "There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have the right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature . (477) Mrs. Mallard did love her husband, not always be she did love him and life would be different without him, but beneath that sadness she kept coming back to the fact that she was now free. Before this event she had thought that life might be long and now she was praying that life would be long, long so she could live. Live free and do what pleased her to do. When so many other women might have been paralyzed from the fear of being alone, she seemed to be awakened from her passive and anemic kind of life, she no longer has to look at life as meaningless and just pass the time she now thinks of the new freedom.