Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" symbolism help!?

Question

Can anyone please share any ideas of symbolism in "The Story of an Hour" with me? I am writing a paper but still have quite a bit more to go to meet my minimum and I feel like I have covered it all. (springtime, blue patches in the sky, heart trouble, etc.)

Answer 1

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- The window
- goddess of victory

The open window signifies the new life and the fresh start that Mrs. Mallard believes she will have now that her husband is dead. We often open windows in our home to let in fresh air and let out stale air, correct? Mrs. Mallard is doing the same thing, symbolically, of course. She is releasing the old way of life she had and letting in the new life she hopes to have; however, she will never get the chance to do so because she dies upon seeing that her husband is actually not dead.
Out the window, she sees "the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. ...and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves." One would expect a stormy sky, lightning and thunder, but Chopin uses the setting to foreshadow the freedom that Louise feels at her husband's death.

As she rises to leave the room, "There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory." The goddess of victory represents Louise's triumph and victory over "repression", over the "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" which she had felt so restricted by in her marriage.