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Mrs Mallard is a sincere character and her reactions to her husband's death are those of a woman who has devoted her life to someone else and has finally been given a chance to be herself. While she appears to celebrate her husband's death, she is really celebrating her own life, a focus she has not been able to have until his death. Mrs Mallard's initial reaction on hearing of her husband's death is one of release rather than grief, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms." Her immediate weeping is a natural reaction of Mrs Mallard. It is not how she decides to act, it is her direct emotional response to the news. In this weeping Mrs Mallard is acting on her own basic feelings and this shows that her reaction is genuine. It is when she retires to her room that her actions become less emotional and more rational. She is no longer acting on instinct,