When people say that a story takes its readers on an emotional journey, this simply means that the story makes us feel many emotions. For example, this story might make us feel sad, when we learn that a young man has died in a railroad accident and that his young wife, who already has heart trouble, must be told. We might feel fearful, with Louise's sister Josephine, that Louise might become sick or weak from her grief. We might feel really confused when we begin to understand that Louise is not feeling grief but, rather, relief that her husband, Brently, is dead. We could grow even more confused when we read that he "never looked save with love upon her", and that she knows she will cry again when she sees his body. The light of understanding may dawn on us, however, when we realize that Louise did not like being married, that she has long yearned for independence. We might feel judgmental of her or, conversely, sympathize with her as a result of this realization. We likely feel shock, with her, when Brently suddenly walks through the front door quite alive. Hopefully, too, we feel some sadness for Louise in the end, when she dies, likely the result of her extreme disappointment that all the lovely freedom she thought she would have disappears with the reappearance of her husband. We see the terrible toll Louise's lack of independence has on her: she cannot truly return her husband's love (though he is a good man), and the prospect of freedom is so enticing that she is literally relieved to learn that she is a widow. Chopin conveys the idea that marriage should not require the woman to completely give up her own identity (as it did under the coverture laws of this era), and that everyone suffers as a result of gender inequity in marriage.