Irony In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

His death is seen as the beginn... ... middle of paper ... ...ge that she does not wish to be in. This woman suffers a tremendous amount from the commitment of her marriage, that the death of her husband does not affect her for long. A marriage such as this seems so unbelievable, yet a reader could see the realistic elements incorporated into the story. This begs the question of how undesirable marriage was during Chopin’s life. The unhappiness felt by Mrs. Mallard seems to be very extreme, but Chopin creates a beautiful story that reflects upon the idea of marriage as an undesired relationship and bond to some women in the nineteenth century.

The narrator begins by first informing the reader that Mrs. Mallard has a “heart problem.” I believe that this usage was intended to be both symbolic and literal. The heart, in most modern cultures, is a universal symbol for love. The mentioning of it, is the author Chopin’s way of telling us that Ms. Mallard has a problem with love, as well as sets the stage for the story’s ending irony. She is a young married woman, with a husband that she recognizes loved her and treated her well. This is understood by her thoughts revealed by the narrator, “she knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin, Kate).

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.

Kate Chopin creates an immense emotional shift when Mrs. Mallard is looking out of the window in her room, after just hearing the bad news, and thinking of the freedom she has instead of grieving her loss when she says, “Free! Body and soul free!” creating a lighter, more cheerful tone than when she sat sobbing in her armchair. She insists, “She had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not.” Suggesting her marriage was not a happy one, and that she might have married him in order to sustain her fiscal needs or some other reason other than love. The reader can infer that Mrs. Mallard was very relieved her husband was dead, but not out of hatred, out of the newfound freedom she had always wanted.

In “Eveline” the death of Eveline’s mother restricted Eveline to the same boring and difficult life that her mother had lived. If she had decided to leave her home to be with Frank, then she would have been free from it. She would have been with a man who gave her love and respect. In the end, Eveline chose to continue to live the life that she knew rather than risking happiness in the unknown. By contrast, in “The Story of An Hour”, Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death and is filled with joy.

The reader also finds out that Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble, and great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. (157) There ar... ... middle of paper ... ...iant because it lets the audience know her real death and what the characters in the story thought her death was. Without irony in a story it may be very boring and easy to put the story down. With irony included in the story the reader does not want to put the book down and stays interested throughout the entire story because irony makes the reader want to know what is going to happen next because they can’t guess it. Kate Chopin uses irony to perfection in this short story.

During her mingled exaltation and grief, it occurred to her that “[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” (189). Although he only appears for a brief moment at the end of the story, we learn about the character of Brently Mallard very vividly through the reaction of his wife to his apparent death. Despite her husband’s kind and loving nature towards her, he most likely treated her as though a father would a little girl because he believed it would be in her best interests. “A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime...” (189). We learn from the actions of the rest of the characters, including Mrs. Mallard, the main character, exactly who each one is.

In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.

On the other hand, it can be argued that the narrator is male and Louise was punished because of her despicable pleasure on Brently’s death. But from whatever perspective the story was written, Chopin tried to make the readers perceive that it was a common story of the women in nineteenth century by using “The story” in the title instead of “A Story”. Because of its nature, readers may need to reread the story for finding the gist. The readers instinctively have to support either Louise or Brently as Kate Chopin kept the point of argument very open and confirmed the likelihood of any reason behind Louise’s death.

Chopin uses “The Story of an Hour” to demonstrate her belief not only in the shackles of marriage in that time, but also the cruelty of warping someone to suit your needs. When Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies she is overcome with joy rather than grief and is instilled with a sense of freedom. However, when all that seemed too good to be true is taken from her she cannot handle it and dies under the weight of this discouragement. Chopin’s theme of liberation achieved through her clever use of language drives home her idea that people should be more independent and less constrained by