Introduction The main character of the story is Louise Mallard, who undergoes a series of traumatic and life-changing events, which end up killing her. The main weakness of Mrs. Mallard is her weak heart condition, which is one of the most significant pieces of information for the character arc development and culmination. The story manifests the main character’s high vulnerability to traumatic occurrences. However, it is clear that the given story must be analyzed and overviewed from the perspective of grief, which made a precise landmark on Louise Mallard’s character arc. Background Of all aspects of human existence, Chopin was most interested in the inner, spiritual life of a woman and how it could be correlated with the role that society imposed on women. Without a doubt, the era and the family, where the foundations of gender identity are laid, greatly influenced the formation of the writer’s artistic world. It seems advisable to take a short excursion into the biography of Kate Chopin, where, perhaps, there are reasons explaining her unusual for the XIX century view of a woman as an independent, thinking person. Analysis Mrs. Mallard experiences a severe amount of grief, even though she later realizes that the given loss possesses a number of benefits. The reaction of damage to the death of a loved one can be manifested by emotional shock with numbness or anxiety, crying, impaired sleep, appetite, constriction of consciousness on traumatic experiences, constant memories of the deceased, mental anguish (Stroebe 81). The main character had a dual emotional battle inside her because her husband passed away, but the story tells the readers that she did not like him very much. Mrs. Mallard says: “free, free, free!”, which clearly emphasizes the fact that there was a certain amount of dislike towards Mr. Mallard (Chopin 3). The reaction to the loss of a significant object is a specific mental process that develops according to its laws. This period of Mrs. Mallard’s life, accompanied by mourning, special attributes, and rituals, has an essential task – the adaptation of the subject who suffered the loss to a “new” life, life without a dead person. To date, there are no theories of grief that adequately explain how people cope with losses, why they experience different degrees of distress and types of pain, how and after what time they adapt to life without significant dead people. However, the case of Mrs. Mallard shows that a person can feel both joy and grief regarding a close person passing away. The main character undergoes a serious emotional and mental transformation when she had to cope with the loss. It’s almost impossible to prepare for the death of a loved one, as Mrs. Mallard’s character arc shows. Even when death is expected, for example, a fatal diagnosis and a short time forecast from doctors. People, such as Mrs. Mallard, who find themselves in a similar situation and possessing complete information, all the same, cannot prepare themselves for the death of a loved one, they hope for a miracle, that everything will be fine. They do not want to believe in the approaching death of a relative or friend. What then to speak of sudden death when a person, for example, gets into a car accident. Thus, death situations can be divided into expected and unforeseen. Despite the fact