"When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills." Louise Mallard dies at the end of Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" precisely for the reasons the doctors suggest. Heart disease serves as a metaphor for an affliction of the soul. Their diagnosis is most likely not a medical one, because could not possibly have been made with any scientific or medical accuracy. The doctors issued their statement when they arrived and not after an autopsy, and they could not have known the exact reasons for Mrs. Mallard's sudden demise. However, many signs point to the diagnosis as being an accurate one. Mrs. Mallard had a history of heart troubles and the narrator describes her physical condition in much detail throughout the story. The very first line of the story begins, "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death." The passive voice lends a journalistic, objective tone to the story: "great care was taken" by all in the room and all who knew that Louise Mallard "had a history of heart troubles." Later the narrator enters Mallard's head more noting how Louise experiences a "a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul." Mrs. Mallard is apparently so weak she must cling to her sister as they descend the stairs at the end of the tale, immediately before Brently walks through the door and shocks his wife. Her mental and emotional state are equally as important as Louise Mallard's physical weaknesses. Mrs. Mallard dies essentially because of the mind-body connection: the conflagration of emotions that stressed her delicate heart beyond its capacity.
             "The joy that kills" is a paradoxical assessment of the cause of death. On the one hand, the doctors do Louise a favor by assuming that she was overjoyed to see her husband. Mrs. Mallard would have appeared cold-hearted and cruel ...