"The Story of an Hour"

I enjoyed reading “The Story of an Hour.” This statement may be misleading. I enjoyed reading it, but I did not enjoy the short story itself. Let me explain further.
The beginning of this story makes me feel pity. I feel like giving poor Mrs. Mallard a hug and consoling her. She is in such a tough spot, or so it seems.
Then I, as the reader, see a different side to her; an ugly side. She starts to have this feeling creep up to her. She says “she was striving to beat it back with her will” (Chopin 194). Yet, having read the entire story, I really don’t believe that she did. Regardless, in the end she submits to this emotion- a feeling of release.
How disgusting is this? I am angered further as she describes her husband’s “kind, tender hands” and “the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin 194). Yet, she cannot seem to wait to move on.
She’s the victim really; a victim of the notion of marriage, commitment to another. She speaks of this commitment in saying, “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” (Chopin 194). She sits there and tries to convince herself of all of these things, just so she can live her life for her.
After having first read this story I felt that Mrs. Mallard was a terribly vile, selfish person. It has been suggested that she may have been beaten and that’s why she felt this way. I really cannot convince myself that this is true; I still think she is just selfish. I find solace in the ending. In that great act of poetic justice, the person who really does die is the one deserving it the most: poor Mrs. Mallard!