1. How might heart trouble be more than a physical ailment?

Chopin makes note of Mrs. Mallard's heart condition in both the beginning and end of the story. Over the course of the story, however, the reader comes to understand that her "condition" has both physical and a mental components. In the beginning, the term "heart trouble" is referred to in a medical sense, but later, we come to understand that her heart is only part of the problem, as her frailty can be attributed more to psychological repression than physiological factors. In the end, Mrs. Mallard's death is contributed to heart disease, but the heart disease itself is described as "the joy that kills"....... a line that establishes that her heart condition as more of a metaphor for her emotional state than a medical reality.