Given her initial reaction to the news that her husband had been killed, we might suppose that Mrs. Mallard's marriage was very good and filled with love and devotion. The narrator says, "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms." Mrs. Mallard then retreats to her room to grieve some more. Such a dramatic reaction suggests that she had truly loved her husband and the news at losing him is devastating.
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Given her initial reaction to the news that her husband had been killed, we might suppose that Mrs. Mallard's marriage was very good and filled with love and devotion. The narrator says, "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms." Mrs. Mallard then retreats to her room to grieve some more. Such a dramatic reaction suggests that she had truly loved her husband and the news at losing him is devastating.
But this initial reaction is just that: mostly a reaction. It is the reaction of a woman who had been playing the role of a dutiful, loyal wife. In this role, she had been fully dependent upon her husband. So, some portion of her dramatic grieving is the result of losing the person upon whom she depended so much. The reaction stems from living this role.
When she begins to experience her new feelings of freedom and independence, it becomes clear that, while her marriage might have been good on the surface, her spirit had actually been repressed. So, her initial reaction of grief seems to have stemmed from that role of the loyal wife. But with her great awakening of independence, she reveals that her true happiness had been repressed by that role of living for her husband, rather than living 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.
No longer burdened by her husband's will, she feels liberated from that old role. She can now live for herself. Given this discovery of happiness in independence, the conclusion is that their marriage was functional. There may have been some degree of genuine love, but this was all on the surface. Inside, Mrs. Mallard's spirit was oppressed to the point that she repressed any notion of living for her own happiness. In that respect, the conclusion is that the marriage was deeply flawed because Mr. Mallard did not know how to, or simply would not understand and encourage his wife's free will and happiness.
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