Mallard's Irony

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a well known fictional prose, or short story. The story takes place in eighteenth century Italy, during carnival season. In the story, a spiteful man named Montresor knowingly and deceitfully leads his “friend”, Fortunato, to his death. Montresor tricks Fortunato by claiming there is a cask of rare wine in Montresor’s catacombs. Throughout the story, Poe uses a literary technique known as irony. Irony is commonly used in literature and can be classified into three different types: verbal, situational, and dramatic. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Edgar Allan Poe, uses verbal, situational, and dramatic irony to create suspense throughout the story.

Mallard’s heart condition in “The Story of An Hour.” When Chopin mentions Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble” (P 67) she sets up the end of the story, when that very ailment kills her. The first sentence of “The Story of an Hour” informed the reader that Mrs. Mallard has heart troubles. Her physical heart problems symbolize her emotional heart problems in relation to her marriage. In paragraph five Chopin mentions the appearance of “new spring life.”(P67) This is the new life Mrs. Mallard soon sees for herself. Later, Chopin says, “she was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her.” (P 68) This was an indication that Mrs. Mallard realized that she will have a new, free life. Mrs. Mallard’s words “free, free, free!” (P 68} indicate to the readers that Mrs. Mallard is not sad about her husband’s death, but she is instead happy about a new begins. Her heart, too is all aquiver with a new life and new

In “The Cask of Amontillado” Edgar Allan Poe tells a story of a man named Fortunato, a professional wine taster, who has foolishly brought death upon himself. Fortunato has managed to anger a man with the name Montresor who has hatched a plan of revenge during a great carnival. To help the reader fully understand Poe uses three different kinds of irony verbal, dramatic, and situational. The verbal being their conversation, the dramatical, when he jokes about his health, and the situational when he is dressed as a jester.

There are three types of irony situational, dramatic, and verbal. The definition of situational irony is when the expected result does not happen. An example of situational irony is in The Tell-Tale Heart is when the caregiver confessed to murdering the old man, despite all of the work he put forth to hide the body. Another example of situational irony is the person who killed the old man is his caregiver, who was there to make he sure he stays well and safe.

Throughout the story, Chopin adds bits of foreshadowing to hint at the demise of Mrs. Mallard. On the opening page of the story, the first sentence states, “Knowing Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break her...husband's death” (6). This sentence leads the reader to believe that Mrs. Mallard is already gravely ill. On the final page of the story, Mrs. Mallard argues with her sister, Josephine, who fears that Mrs. Mallard is making herself sick from heartbreak. Mrs. Mallard shouts, “Go away. I am not making myself ill” (8). This foreshadows that she is already making herself sick.

Upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment” (Chopin 65) Specifically, Chopin makes us believe Mrs. Mallard was never happy, even from the shock in the beginning to a new outlook; she never had the life she wanted. She sits calmly down: "There stood, facing an open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair."(Chopin 65) Mrs. Mallard in turn shows us that the word “comfort” is used to imply a different reaction than we would expect normally from losing a loved one. Discovering when she looks out the window she views life in a different way. Mrs. Mallard starts studying the nature outside the window: "The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves."(Chopin 66) Bringing attention to new life, and a fresh start I believe the author was emphasizing on. At the same time we see as she runs off to her room. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!”(Chopin 66).  This feeling; the feeling of freedom is obviously something Mrs. Mallard hasn’t felt for a very long time I believe. Mrs. Mallard has felt restrained and controlled throughout her whole marriage, emotionally and physically by her husband as we see in the

These thoughts were a bit suspicious and frightful to acknowledge. As Mrs. Mallard sits next to her window she begins to contemplate what feelings are emerging from her, “There was something coming to her and she was wanting for, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name” (Chopin 653). This depicts the anticipation of change that is about to come into her life. Chopin describes it not as a physical object, but something she internally knows when it fact it blossoms into a new realization. With all these perplexed emotions she encounters from looking out the window to “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds” (Chopin 653), these thoughts become the factor of releasing herself from her forbearing attitude into the new impression of individualism and

In this story, the two irony’s that we’re used are the situational (or cosmic) irony and the dramatic irony, because when Mrs. Mallard had gotten the news that her husband was killed in the railroad disaster of course she cried, but when she went into her room to probably take in all that was going on, that’s when her true feelings came out. She felt a sense of relief and a sense of freedom in the fact that soon she will be able to just please herself and not have to deal with someone else’s demands. But come to find out the roles reversed when she went downstairs with her sister and that front door opened, her husband walked right in with no harm done to him. Out of shock, she collapsed and died. These ironies are related because nothing

Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble is symbolic of her broken relationship with her husband, Brently. Of all the possible health issues that Mrs. Mallard could have been battling, it is heart trouble that she if faced with. It is noted that Josephine speaks “in broken sentences; veiled hints” (Chopin, “The Story”), so that the news of Brently’s death is revealed to Mrs. Mallard as carefully as possible. However, the news of her husband’s death actually brings a new life to Mrs. Mallard: “Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (Chopin, “The Story”). Mrs. Mallard’s marriage has confined her to her home and has caused the loss of her freedom, which is represented by her heart trouble. Her death is not caused by the joy of seeing her husband like the doctors thought, but rather due to a loss of joy, as she loses her newly found independence upon seeing Brently walk through the front door. Chopin shares: “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills” (“The Story”). The window in Mrs. Mallard’s bedroom also serves as an important symbol in the story, representing Mrs. Mallard’s freedom. Upon seeing the beauty throughout the streets as she looks out her window, Mrs. Mallard is finally able to realize that the rest of her life is full of countless possibilities (Rosenblum,

Her husband was already dead so what more could happen. What more was she able to do. “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. 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. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination” (Chopin). I feel like Mrs. Mallard got the feeling as if something is going to happen. Her whole body began to change. “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (Chopin). I feel like that feeling she had was her husband’s soul. He was not dead and was on his way home. An interesting thing to me that her room was upstairs and while she was sitting in her chair in her room, she was looking outside at the trees and listening to the birds chirp, symbolizing a place like

An example of situational irony would be when the townspeople are trying to find out who the father of Pearl is and all of a sudden it becomes known to the reader that the father is Arthur Dimmesdale. Hawthorne tells the reader this after we are introduced to the antagonist and estranged husband of Hester, Roger Chillingworth. The readers awareness of Arthur being the father of Pearl is also dramatic irony because Roger does not know. Arthur says Pearl is the child of her “father’s guilt and [her] mother’s shame…” which is ironic because he is the father and he knows he is guilty.(100) The fact that the Scarlet A is always being described as “beautiful” and fantastic is very ironic because it is a representation of sin and

The image of an armchair seems masculine because it is traditionally a man’s chair or placed in a man’s office. The image of Mrs. Mallard sitting in the chair suggests that she is in control or in a position of power. She faces an “open window” (Chopin 536) where she can see an “open square” (Chopin 536). The repetition of the word “open” along with “the notes of a distant song” (Chopin 536) and the “countless sparrows twittering in the eaves” (Chopin 536) enforce a sense of liberation and harmony that is encompassing the widow. The “song” is “distant” and the sparrows are hidden under the “eaves,” implying that freedom is available to her but only in the future. Mrs. Mallard looks out through her window and sees “patches of blue sky...through the clouds” (Chopin 537) which indicate that a storm is just about to end and that there is a possibility of hope for her. The scenery, which is “reaching toward her” (Chopin 537) and through which “she was drinking in a very elixir of life” (Chopin 537), brings her subtle happiness. It makes her realize that she is “’free, free, free!’” (Chopin 537) to exist as a self separate from her husband.

There are a couple of examples of situational irony that is apparent throughout “Story of an Hour“. Mr. Mallard being dead is one. The messenger comes and says that there was a train crash and Mr. Mallard was in it. Mr. Mallard is indeed not dead but we think he is but at the end he comes walking in the door.

As her tears fade sitting in her comfortable armchair adjacent from the open window, she stares out into the new spring life. The four seasons spring, summer, fall, and winter are symbolic of the stages of our life. Chopin chooses spring as the season for this story to symbolize the new life that Mrs. Mallard thinks is awaiting her. Her husband’s death is no longer a burden to the life she will be living, but is key to the life she had been missing. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” She first weeps at the thought of living life without her husband, but when she stares out into the world she sees all that she has to offer and that the entire time her husband was holding her back. Now she has the opportunity to live her life to her fullest and is excited with

The use of imagery is displayed heavily throughout the story to reflect the feelings of Mrs. Mallard following the news of her husband’s abrupt death. The setting outside her window is very descriptive and allows the audience to connect this imagery to the future that Mrs. Mallard is now seeing opening for her. As she is looking out of the window in her bedroom, she sees “trees that were all aquiver with new spring life” as well as sparrows “twittering in the eaves” (Chopin). This represents the joy and realization of a new life for Mrs. Mallard. She can now start over as a free woman instead of living as a man’s property trapped inside the house; this is where the woman’s place was during this period while only