# Mrs. Mallard — Short Fiction character guide

> Mrs. Mallard in Short Fiction by Kate Chopin.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0056-the-dream-of-an-hour

## Snapshot

A woman with a weak heart who, upon hearing of her husband's death, discovers something in herself she never dared name.

## Who they are

Mrs. Mallard is known to her family as fragile, a woman whose heart cannot bear shocking news, and so she is told of her husband's death with the greatest possible care. What follows is not simple grief but a strange, terrifying unfolding of feeling that she must hide from her sister and the household. Her private reckoning with freedom and selfhood is the quiet earthquake at the center of the story.

## In the story

### [The Dream of an Hour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/chapters/the-dream-of-an-hour)

The protagonist, afflicted with a heart trouble, who experiences a profound emotional shift from grief to a sense of freedom upon hearing of her husband's death.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/characters/mrs_mallard
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/characters