Story Of An Hour Rhetorical Analysis

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Michael Cherry September 30,2016 Sarah Patterson English 11 The story of an hour In the short story, “The Story of An Hour”, Kate Chopin emphasizes the freedom that one woman in the late 1800s found in the midst of a portrayal of her husband being dead. This woman, Louise Mallard, cannot stop dreaming of freedom once she finds out that her husband is dead. This leads on to her dreaming about all the things that she could do in the absence of her husband from her life and the beginning of her new life as a widow. The overall tone of this passage is one of freedom and this tone is supported by the use of imagery of spring, detail, and diction. The imagery of spring, in this short story, aids the overall tone of freedom in representing the …show more content…

This detail about her heart trouble is provided at the beginning of the story foreshadows her death towards the end. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her, as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” . The historically alluded detail is given when she is thinking about the west. “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window” . The detail about the heart trouble gives the reader a clue that there is probably going to be something in relation to that later in the story. However, this goes into the tone shift from depression to freedom because the heart trouble acts up when she is forced to stop dreaming about freedom due to the safe arrival of Mr. Mallard. The detail about the west is important because the west was freedom at this point in time. The west is basically is a synonym for the overall tone of freedom for this short story. However, the detail and imagery are also aided by the strong but concise diction Chopin

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