A universal theme in both stories is marriage and death from the perspective of women. In “The story of an hour”, when Mrs. Mallard learns her husband is dead, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment”, but then, when she is alone and reflects a little about it, she understands she is "Free! Body and soul free!”, that her remaining years belongs only to her. When she finds out her husband isn’t dead after all, the pain caused by the loss of this new freedom kills her in her young age.
On the other hand, Granny dies of old age, but in her deathbed she remembers the one that jilted her, George. Although she moved on, married another one, had a family, etc., in her final hours she remembers that failed marriage, the rejection that created a pain which never left. They both sort of die from pain created by failed marriages, one that never happened and one that didn’t end in time to release the woman from a pointless life.
