The withdrawal into this room, away from the others, and the pleasant, cheerful view out of the window bring a sudden realization upon her: the death of her husband actually means freedom, the freedom to live for herself only and enjoy her own life. As in Virginia's Woolf book, Mrs. Mallard realizes the importance of a woman's having a room of her own, that is, her own private world where she can enjoy her own life. When she gets out of the room she had come to mourn for her husband, Mrs. Mallard finds with stupefaction that her husband had just arrived and that he had never been in the accident. The end of story tells us she dies "of joy," according to...

Thus, Chopin's story perfectly illustrates the ideas that Virginia Woolf will express later in her book: women felt muffled in a society that didn't give them the chance to express themselves and to have their own world. The need for a room of one's own actually translates as the need of a woman to have her own world that would from where she can see life on her own terms, from her own perspective, and be able to make her own choices.
Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Other Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. Harcourt: Brace Jovanovich, 1929