Irony In The Story Of An Hour By Kate Choplin
Irony in the “Story of an Hour”
By Kate Choplin
The Story of an Hour by Kate Choplin is about an older woman who struggles with coercion brought about by her husband and her surreptitious yearning for freedom. Mrs. Mallard does not truly know how miserable she was until she finds out that her husband has died in a terrible train accident. Kate Choplin writes this story in a limited, third person point of view; however, it is still quite exciting with how it was structured. Choplin expresses her theme of oppression with her extensive use of situational irony and symbolism throughout the story. In The Story of an Hour, Kate Choplin makes much use of situational irony and symbolism, this helps add to the drama an excitement of the short story, especially since she wrote it as a limited, third person narrative. Choplin starts the story out by mentioning that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart complications and that an immense amount of care needs to be taken to break this heart wrenching news of …show more content…
When Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband died, she ran upstairs to her room and “…she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Paragraph 4), the armchair symbolizes the rest from her oppressive life and the freedom from societal expectations that women from this time period were burdened with. Another situation in which Choplin uses irony in the story, which is the most important aspect, is Brently walking in the door. When Louise sees her husband who is supposed to be dead, she is beyond overwhelmed and drops dead. The doctors’ say that Mrs. Mallard died from being overjoyed in finding out that her husband was actually alive, when in fact she died from being heartbroken. The hopes of her new life of being a free woman were over, she could not live her life out how she dreamed and this is what killed
By Kate Choplin
The Story of an Hour by Kate Choplin is about an older woman who struggles with coercion brought about by her husband and her surreptitious yearning for freedom. Mrs. Mallard does not truly know how miserable she was until she finds out that her husband has died in a terrible train accident. Kate Choplin writes this story in a limited, third person point of view; however, it is still quite exciting with how it was structured. Choplin expresses her theme of oppression with her extensive use of situational irony and symbolism throughout the story. In The Story of an Hour, Kate Choplin makes much use of situational irony and symbolism, this helps add to the drama an excitement of the short story, especially since she wrote it as a limited, third person narrative. Choplin starts the story out by mentioning that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart complications and that an immense amount of care needs to be taken to break this heart wrenching news of …show more content…
When Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband died, she ran upstairs to her room and “…she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Paragraph 4), the armchair symbolizes the rest from her oppressive life and the freedom from societal expectations that women from this time period were burdened with. Another situation in which Choplin uses irony in the story, which is the most important aspect, is Brently walking in the door. When Louise sees her husband who is supposed to be dead, she is beyond overwhelmed and drops dead. The doctors’ say that Mrs. Mallard died from being overjoyed in finding out that her husband was actually alive, when in fact she died from being heartbroken. The hopes of her new life of being a free woman were over, she could not live her life out how she dreamed and this is what killed