The Story of an Hour Irony Essay Imagine being given the news that your abusive spouse was killed in a horrific accident only for them to walk through your front door. Sounds pretty ironic right? Well this is exactly what happened in The Story of an Hour. It was an ordinary day for Mrs.Mallard when she was given the terrible news that her husband was killed. After taking a quiet stroll, she realized she was free from her husband’s controlling wrath which brought great joy to her. Later that day she was walking down the stairs with her sister when her husband that was supposed to be dead bust through the front door. In an instant, she died of a heart attack which the doctor said it was because of joy which it really was of disappointment. In this story, there were two types of irony which were situational and dramatic and in this essay I will be discussing these two examples. …show more content…
It was really used well in this story because I wasn't expecting him to still be alive when there had been double clarification of his death. If it wasn't used in the story the end story would change dramatically. Mrs. Mallard wouldn't have had her heart attack from the shock and there wouldn't be the question of where her husband was when he was “dead”. The second example of irony in this story is dramatic irony when Mrs. Mallard had her heart attack which the doctors said was from joy when we really knew it was from disappointment and shock. I think it was used well because it also gave the reader a scale of the severity of her heart condition and how much shock she was in. If this example of irony wasn't used in the story it would probably change dramatically as well. If the doctors knew she died from disappointment rather than joy it would make her seem like a jerk for being happy her husband was
In the “Story of an Hour” we observe many instances in which irony takes place.
Situational irony is used in "The Story of an Hour" through Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death and the description of the settings around her at this time. Upon
I would think that if my spouse had just died in a tragic railroad accident, I would not want the news told to me in the same manner the weather report is. That is why I feel that the whole idea of "heart trouble" that afflicts Mrs. Mallard has more to do with a mental ailment, and the lack of love for her husband.
In “The Story of an Hour” the author portrays Mrs. Mallard through using situational irony, dramatic irony, and verbal irony. First, the situational irony the author uses is present in the beginning throughout the end. Mrs. Mallard freezes from the news of the death of her husband and cries not from sadness, but from the happiness
Irony is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. This essay will emphasize and recognize the power of irony in American Literature. “To Build a Fire,” “The Story of an Hour,” and “The Crucible” all show strong elements of irony. A quote, pulled from the book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” says that, “In each case, the sign carries with it a customary meaning, but that doesn’t guarantee it will deliver the received meaning.” Ironic words may have many meanings, but will never have the meaning you expect. In this essay three different stories will represent the three main different types of irony. The types of irony shown in this essay will be situational irony, dramatic irony, and verbal irony.
Women submitting and expected to bow down to their husbands dates back to when time first began. Also men wanting power and to feel as if they are in control, is still present today. When reading “The Story of An Hour” I got the impression that Mrs. Mallard was very unhappy in her marriage. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” The woman experienced mental and emotional trauma and she had no one to talk to. I would like to elaborate on how these stories relate to relationships and marriages today.
Towards the end that through miscommunication, Mrs. Louise Mallard’s husband was not deceased. In fact, he was so far removed from the incident itself that he was not aware of such a monstrous accident. At this point of the
So as we see, they thought that the joy of seeing her husband returns killed her, but the truth is that she was so happy when she thought him dead and she was starting to plan about her future and how she was going to spend the rest of her life without boundaries and without her husband that was making her live uncomfortable. And the situational irony comes as surprising and unpredicted event that the author uses it to show us how much Mrs. Mallard hates her husband and emphasize the theme of "freedom" even if imagining a new free life costs her life when her husband showed up.
The use of irony makes this story enjoyable and lets readers understand Mrs. Mallard’s true feelings about her husband. The story begins with the irony that Mr. Richard and Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, were very cautious in telling Mrs. Mallard the news of the death of her husband. However, they did not know that the news will bring her happiness. It is ironic that her sister was afraid that bad news is almost more than Mrs. Mallard could bear, but she did not know that this was the happiest hour in Mrs. Mallard’s life. Mrs. Mallard believed that there would be no one to take control of her life.
Imagine this: the husband you have spent a majority of your time with suddenly dies in a train crash. Everyone expects you to be devastated, to go completely insane. No one arounds you knows how to break the news that the man you love is gone. If only they knew, though, that you did not actually love him at all. This is what happened to Mrs. Mallard, the main character of ¨The Story of an Hour¨. When she found out her husband was no longer alive, she had never been more excited. She was excited to finally be free and on her own, so when she heard that he was actually unharmed, it did not sit well with her. Because the woman felt so trapped in her marriage, she died from shock and sadness by the sight of her alive husband. This surprising story deals with two types of irony: situational and dramatic, which I will be breaking down.
Life often seems as though it flashes before your eyes, before you know it you will be in your later years and loved ones are passing on “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1894 is a short story written about just that. Are you going to be happy the way your life turned out or are you going to regret living your life in a video game? This story is a short story filled with irony, happiness and freedom.
Kate Chopin's "The Story of a Hour” has an ironic ending. Mrs. Mallard dies exactly when she is starting to have a sense of freedom. At first reading, the ending appears to be excessively irony for belief. When rereading the story in any case, one sees that the ending is reasonable incompletely in light of the fact that it is reliable with alternate ironies in the story.
The first form of irony is quite dramatic in the way Mrs. Mallard reacts upon hearing 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”. Given her demeanor before she retreats to her room one would have never guessed that her outburst of dismay would turn into that of overwhelming joy. We can see her revel in her unexpected freedom as she sits in her armchair and gazes through the window. The big roomy armchair resembles a throne and gives Mrs. Mallard the resemblance of a queen who had just won a war against her tyrannical husband. -- “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and woman believe they have
Set in an American home in the late nineteenth century “The Story of an Hour” is a short story by American writer Kate Chopin who published as many as about hundred short stories during the 1890s. It revolves round a young married woman’s reaction to a report that her husband has died in a train accident. In this story Chopin comes up with the idea of emancipation of a woman from the tentacles of marital life through death — not of her husband but her own! Chopin ends her story saying, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease— of joy that kills.” We may ponder over what kind of a joy it is that becomes the cause of one’s demise.
Kate Chopin was born February 8, 1850 (Wyatt n.p.). She went to a Catholic boarding school at age 5 (Wyatt n.p.). In 1870 at age 20, she married Oscar Chopin and moved to New Orleans where she had five boys and two girls all before she was twenty eight (Wyatt n.p.). Oscar was not an able businessman, so they were forced to move to a small Louisiana parish, where eventually Oscar died of Malaria in 1882 (Wyatt n.p.). In 1884 she moved back in with her mom in St. Louis. Unfortunately her mother died the next year, leaving Katie alone with her children again (Wyatt n.p.). “To support herself and her young family, she began to write”, becoming an immediate success where she eventually wrote The Story of an Hour on April 19, 1894. The well known short story is about Louise Mallard, a wife with a heart condition who finds out her husband has died in a horrible accident. Although her friends think Louise is devastated, she's secretly ecstatic until he walks through the door unharmed causing her to die of a heart attack. Kate Chopin was a