The strict limitations of the setting mirror the strict limitations placed on women during the Victorian era, the time in which Louise Mallard lives. As Louise mentally processes the fact that her husband is dead, the first words she speaks aloud are "'free, free, free!'" Though the joy she feels is a "monstrous" one, she feels it nonetheless. She knows that her husband loved her, and she feels that she, at times, loved him. However, most tellingly, she reflects on the idea that
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
She seems to have felt trapped in her marriage. Perhaps she never wanted to marry at all and was forced to as a result of societal expectation. Perhaps she didn't want to marry Brently but had to because there was no good, socially-acceptable reason to refuse him. Whatever the case, her marriage seems to have made her feel that she could not live for herself, that she must always give way to whatever her husband wanted, because that is what marriage demanded of Victorian women. They were forced to live relatively small lives.
Likewise, the setting is small, and it parallels the figurative "smallness" of Louise's life. She has been confined, restricted, and almost the first thing she does after learning of her husband's death is to open the window and look outside, as though his death has liberated her from confinement; she notices the birds and the trees and the clouds now. One of the main themes of the story, about the confinement marriage posed to women during this era (even when the marriage was a loving one), is further expressed by the story's setting.
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