In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard is a woman living with a heart condition that causes severe stress in her life. When she discovers that her husband has passed away in a tragic accident, she goes into shock and does not know how to cope with such a tragedy. In this story, there are several literary techniques used to display the matter. For example, there is the use of situational irony, allegory and symbolism, and the main theme. Mrs. Mallard lives in a middle-class home, with family and friends around. She has a problem with worrying about her freedom and independence. When she starts coping with the loss of her husband, she soon unearths the true fate of her liberty. It is a bright spring day for Mrs. Mallard, when her sister and husband’s friend come to bear her the news that her husband has unfortunately died in an accident. In the irony of the story, she has gained her freedom when her husband dies and is finally able to live with the confidence she has been desperately seeking. It is not shown whether or not she and her husband had a healthy relationship, but it did not seem to affect her terribly when he was gone. Kristene B. says “The people closest to her have gone to great lengths to cushion the blow of her husband’s death; however, we are not given any details as to the relationship they had …show more content…
Throughout the story, there is a certain type of pressure on Mrs. Mallard as she tries to bring herself to feel decent with her husband being dead. When she learns that he is in fact alive, she feels crushed inside to know that her chance of freedom and self-reliance has faded. In a world where men are known to be the commanding figure in families, women, like Mrs. Mallard, resort to feeling inferior. As said by Michael Cummings, Mrs. Mallard was a “weak-willed woman, one who probably repressed her desire to control her destiny”. (Cummings, Michael J. par.
Mrs. Mallard?s freedom did not last but a few moments. Her reaction to the news of the death of her husband was not the way most people would have reacted. We do not know much about Mr. And Mrs. Mallards relationship. We gather from the text that her freedom must have been limited in some way for her to be feeling this way. Years ago women were expected to act a certain way and not to deviate from that. Mrs. Mallard could have been very young when she and Brently were married. She may not have had the opportunity to see the world through a liberated woman?s eyes and she thought now was her chance.
Why would a married woman go out, spend the night with a man whom she barely knows, when she has a wonderful, devoted husband and child? Mrs. Mallard's cry of ultimate relief and the joy she felt when she learned of her husband's deathis intolerable.
The symbols and imagery used by Kate Chopin's in “The Story of an Hour” give the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard’s new life appearing before her through her view of an “open window” (para. 4). Louise Mallard experiences what most individuals long for throughout their lives; freedom and happiness. By spending an hour in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4) in front of an open window, she undergoes a transformation that makes her understand the importance of her freedom. The author's use of Spring time imagery also creates a sense of renewal that captures the author's idea that Mrs. Mallard was set free after the news of her husband's death.
“The Story of The Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a young lady who battles with the suffering brought on by her seemingly unhappy marriage and the freedom she secretly desires. The protagonist in the story, Mrs. Mallard, does not realize how unhappy she truly is until she learns that her husband is dead. Even though the story is written with the limit of third person point of view, it does not lack the structure of dramatic irony to keep the reader wanting more. The author’s use of oppression is shown by the irony in the story, especially when Mrs. Mallard starts to notice a sense of freedom shortly after hearing of her husband’s death. The author also uses symbolisms to express this new feeling, which makes the protagonist someone easy for the reader to connect with. One of the more praiseworthy features of Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is the fact that the author is able to control the dramatics of a very condensed short story with suspense, shock, and surprise. If it is true that art reflects life, then the author has personal irony that will serve as proof in this case. In the story, Mrs. Mallard’s husband is presumed dead from a train accident. Ironically, in real life Chopin’s father is also killed in a train accident leaving her mother to be a widow. At the age of thirty, Chopin becomes a widow as well when her husband unexpectedly dies. Chopin uses irony to build up the emotions in the reader.
When Mrs. Mallard’s husband is reportedly killed in an accident, Mrs. Mallard grieves for the loss of her husband although, as she grieves, she begins to see her husband’s death as an opportunity for her to live her life for herself.
Mrs. Mallard is relieved by her husband’s death, feeling her freedom come back to her, a feeling that suddenly leaves her whenever Brentley Mallard appears through the door of their house. The loss of her new-found freedom causes Mrs. Mallard much more grief than her husband’s death, and she dies of what the doctors claim to be heart disease, however, the real cause of her death is the distress she feels at the sight of her husband being alive and the realization that will not be re-claiming her freedom.
Mrs. Mallard, in “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, exhibits a healthy need of inquiry when presented with the monumental news of her husband’s passing. Separating herself from others, she seeks out a safe and comfortable space that will allow her to fully express her emotions and to logically evaluate her options. Once she came to the conclusion of being elated, she set her mind and heart into that reality. This dedication is only good if not contrasting information is given.
is also oppressed by the circumstances within her marriage. Mrs. Mallard however suppressed her feelings and of unhappiness and in which the story implies puts stress on her heart. The announcement of her husband death brings on conflicting feelings of grief and joy. Mrs. Mallard paradoxical statement about the death of her husband changes her perception about life. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
Irony can often be found in many literary works. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is masterfully written full of irony. The characters of the short story, Mrs. Mallard, Josephine, Richards, Mr. Brently Mallard, and the doctors all find their way into Chopin’s ironic twists. Chopin embodies various ironies in “The Story of an Hour” through representations of verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony.
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
“When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.” This is the most ironic and final line in Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. Story of an Hour tells the story of Mrs. Mallard, a woman who recently found her husband died in a train accident, final hour alive. After hearing the news of her husband death, Mrs. Mallard goes to her bedroom to grieve, but realizes the freedom she now has from his death. This new found freedom is shortly lived when she finally realizes her husband is not actually dead. I am going to demonstrate the literary devices irony and symbolism is used in this story.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
The first reader has a guided perspective of the text that one would expect from a person who has never studied the short story; however the reader makes some valid points which enhance what is thought to be a guided knowledge of the text. The author describes Mrs. Mallard as a woman who seems to be the "victim" of an overbearing but occasionally loving husband. Being told of her husband's death, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (This shows that she is not totally locked into marriage as most women in her time). Although "she had loved him--sometimes," she automatically does not want to accept, blindly, the situation of being controlled by her husband. The reader identified Mrs. Mallard as not being a "one-dimensional, clone-like woman having a predictable, adequate emotional response for every life condition." In fact the reader believed that Mrs. Mallard had the exact opposite response to the death her husband because finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow. "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." We can see that the reader got this idea form this particular phrase in the story because it illuminates the idea of her sorrow tuning to happiness.
Mallard’s heart condition is quite significant, given the way that it ties in with the story’s rather abrupt finish. It is a difficult question, to which we return at the end of the paper, what precisely to make of the heart issue. But in any case there is arguably a clear sense in which both the first mention of the heart condition, and also the story’s termination, are of secondary importance in understanding the author’s message. What is more important, it will be argued, is the almost overwhelming sense of liberation that Mrs. Mallard comes to experience when she is told about, and has had some time to process, what appears to be the fact that her husband has been