The Story of an Hour
Literary Elements in The Story of an Hour In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” she uses different kinds of literary elements to clearly define her story and to show all of the meanings behind what happens in the story. There are many different kinds of literary elements used in this short story but I believe the most important one is irony. Irony is what she used the most throughout the story all the way into the conclusion which was by the far what gave the story a tragic and ironic ending. If she did not use all of the literary elements that were used in this story then the story would not be a whole and it wouldn’t all come together and make sense. It would be more dull and completely uninteresting and confusing. The literary elements used in this short story help make it surprisingly unpredictable and help it all come together in the end. If you took irony out of the story then there would literally be no point to the story. It would just be a boring thing to read with an ending that’s predictable and dull. The only surprising thing to this story which gave it a little bit of livelihood was the ending and if that wasn’t such an ironic part of the story then this wouldn’t even be considered a short story it would just be two pages of dull reading. This short story is about a woman named Mrs. Mallard who just finds out that her husband had been tragically killed in a train crash. She finds out from her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards. She has great heart trouble and once she finds out she just sinks into a chair and falls into a state of mind where she is just acknowledging what she had just heard. She doesn’t know if she should be happy or sad because she felt free but at the same time also heartbroken. He apparently wasn’t the greatest husband but she doesn’t feel like she can go on without him. She looked outside and noticed all of the nature and the new life she would live. She could see in the open
Cited: Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2009. 659-660. Print. Evans, Robert C. "Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Kate Chopin 's "The Story of an Hour." Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Kate Chopin 's 'The Story of an Hour ' (2006): 1. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. Jamil, S. Selina. "Emotions in the Story of an Hour." Explicator 67.3 (2009): 215-220. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. Geni Williams, et al. "Diverse Responses to Kate Chopin 's "The Story of an Hour.." Close Readings: Analyses of Short Fiction (2001): 85. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.