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Kate Chopin 1894
American women writer
book "Awakening"

first time of reading: Q1 Is the woman really killed of joy?
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

Q2 This sentence is grammatically incorrect, lacking the subject of the verb "know". Who knows?
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

The newspaper officer has the firsthand resource and is quick. We relate him with reliability and think of him as trust-worthy.
The most important two things for newspaperman: Time and Accuracy.
We can see from the para that he has taken time.

-reading psychology阅读心理
sub/un-consciously accept the info from the word TRUTH

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

"A storm of grief" indicates that the feeling came quickly and also went away rapidly.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

Chairs are chairs, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. Chairs do not feel.
Comfortable and roomy are purely one's subjective feelings, by the occupant of the chair. It is projection of the feeling onto the object. 感情投射
She had stopped feeling sad. 
comfortable--> psychological feeling--> identification与心情一致
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 clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

She could see...
Q3 What do we see with our eyes?
We actually see what we want to see and choose to see, ignoring something we do not want to see. Our eyes are selective, picky and choosy. They do not see everything in front of us, but focus on their interest only. Sometimes even if we look, we could not see it.视而不见
We think we chance upon things, but they are actually inevitable.
Also true with other senses -- selective.
eg. smell: breath of rain -- delicious; hear: (near) crying peddler -- life & (far) song faintly & sparriws twittering...

Q4
Why did she see
i. tops of trees
ii.patches of blue sky ?

She is thinking of herself of a bird.
A bird's habitat: tree (perch, relaxing, resting when tired) & sky

plus, in a paticular kind of condition: in a cage
A caged, imprisoned bird, confined, trying to fly out onto the tops of trees -- destination
inside --> outside

raise her eyes, lift up: blue sky
to dislodge, to disentangle >< constraint, confinement of the marriage
Her husband's death freed her from the bondage of marriage.

Tree & Sky: places she longs to be
"How I wish I was there..."
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

fearfully: punctuated, extra stressed
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will - as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

resist it, yet could not, because of her weak will
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that 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. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

save: means but, except
double negative -- to emphasize: he had always looked upon her with love.
She knew her husband loved her dearly.

contrast of time
a bitter moment: short, fleeting >< a long procession of years: long span/duration

She was embracing the coming years, rejoicing, although embittered.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

She had lived for him. She had to accommodate, could not object. 
She could, would live for herself. There would not be powerful will from her husband.

Man and woman in love mistakenly believe that they have the right to impose a personal will upon another's. She did not think so.
The theme of "love", "freedom" and "imposition".爱 自由 强求

illumination: enligntenment knowledge
Having nothing to do with the intention, whether kind or cruel, it is a crime.
And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

It is unfair to say she had never loved him. He loved her, although imposed.
"What did it matter!" It did not matter any longer.
In comparison with self-assertion and freedom, love in nothing to her.
Freedom is the most important. equitting, identifying
Nothing is comparable.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door - you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

Louise >< Mrs. Mallard
selfhood restored
awakening
rediscovering of her own identity

Kate Chopin: craftsmanship, very skillful巧具匠心
very naturally set it by Josephine, since she has always been calling her sister by name
-- cooperating unconsciously
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

door - shut >< window - opened
paradoxical, ironical about the imprisonment

The room she shut herself up is the bedroom of the couple, the most private space in the house.
Josephine's belief: she was crying herself to death in their private room.

She chose to go into the room -- self-imposed, confinement.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

repetition: life might be long.
Yet totally different meaning. Yesterday she is afraid that life might be long. Right now she wish that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

spatial arragement空间设置
no pure time, no pure space
space in time, time in space
time only possible in space, space only possible in time
*temporal space & spatial time空间与时间不独立存在

The Story of an Hour - the story of time
虽然是一个关于时间的故事，但是空间的设置不可忽视

J & L --> R
B.M. -->
a larger space
triangle 空间的三角设置
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

quick >< late
It is Richard who kills.
Richard was not too late. He was too quick. What if he had come an hour later?

A1 everyone knows, no need to put a subject
heart trouble & heart disease
sometimes interchangable, but here hear trouble has a broader meaning: i.heart diseas (clinical) ii.psychlogical

Journalist: wrong/fake info
Doctor: verdict right but partially

She was not killed of joy, but the despair, the loss of newly gained freedom, the forever gone freedom which lasted only for an hour.

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Taking her death into consideration, is this an-hour-long freedom worthwhile?