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be surely condemned. Here the superego, which yields to the morality principle, defeated the id, which is subject to the pleasure principle. As a lady who was asked to learn all the social graces since childhood, she must find it immoral and guilty to be happy at the news of her husband’s death, but meanwhile she found it irresistible to feel excited, so she decided to stay alone. However, Josephine and Richards misinterpreted her weeping and mistook that she wanted to stay alone because she was heart-broken. But neither of them knew that a violent conflict had occurred inside her. For the time being she retreated to a realm of freedom. Once she entered into the room and was left alone, she did no longer need to wear a mask so that she could do what she just wanted. Now she was again conquered by the pleasure principle. She was so exhausted that she sank into the armchair and immediately returned to the unconscious state. She let herself follow the imagination like an unbridled horse. Here is the vivid description of her mind, “There she stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.” She was so happy that everything in her eyes looked so lovely and sounded pleasant. An unspeakable anticipation took her by storm. Although she was a little bit fearful of it, she could hardly conceal her pleasure that she wanted to ‘drink in the very elixir of life through the open window’. She murmured to herself over and over, “Free, free, free!” “Free! Body and soul free!” Her seemingly inappropriate pleasure formed a striking yet discordant contrast with the death of her husband. All these show that she was no other than a beast in the cage and she had repressed herself for so long. But now, she could at last live a kind of life she wanted. Though sometimes she felt she had love for her husband, she often denied it. Maybe this kind of love was only out of her responsibility as a wife. So this was the so-called happy marriage! Here the authoress elaborated a vivid picture of the working mind of the heroine as if she were directing a movie. She faithfully presented a series of snapshots like montage to her readers. Though she never commented on it from the moral standpoint, we still can draw the conclusion that the superficially lucky and happy marriage is a castle in the air; that is, it might lack nothing but love. Perhaps Mr. Mallard did love her too, but he often ignored her existence as an individual. In another word, he loved and treated his wife as a pet. And then we can imagine that how many women of that day would suffer the fate of Mrs. Mallard! While Mrs. Mallard was indulging herself in the sweet daydreams, her sister Josephine’s knock at the door took her back to the real world. Josephine had thought that her sister locked herself in the room to vent her grief. She worried about that her sister would drive crazy and probably commit suicide on impulse, so she insisted on her opening the door. However, ironically, Mrs. Mallard still wanted to taste the sweetness of free