Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is about young a woman who is addressed by her married name, Mrs. Mallard, whose husband befalls a tragic death. Instead of being sad and full of despair for the rest of her young life she feels a very strong sense of relief because in all honesty she never liked the idea of not having free will in her marriage. As she sits in her room and thinks about her situation she only feels relieved, almost happy that her husband died because now she can live her life. However just when her life seemed to be going in a very positive direction Mr. Mallard turns up at the house, very much alive. Seeing her husband alive causes her such distress that she has a heart attack and dies immediately. The irony in this situation with the use of many distinct symbols, help establish the theme of the inherent oppressiveness of marriage.
In order to understand the concept of oppressive marriages, one needs to understand how the use of figurative language and literary devices give depth to the themes of the story. The most common literary devices found in the short story is symbolism. Symbolism “is the use of symbols to signify meanings that are different from their literal sense” (Merriam Webster) Common examples of symbolism include “open window” symbols which signifies new freedom found by the protagonist and “darkness” which can either signify great evil in a characters heart, sadness and disease or death. Furthermore, the most common figurative language is Irony. Irony “is a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. It can also be a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated” (L...
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.... Finally the purpose in Kate Chopin writing this story is to show the audience that sometimes it’s ok to feel trapped because there is always a solution even if that solution happens to be death
In Conclusion, the use of symbolism and irony really give depth to the to the conflicts and themes that Kate Chopin is trying to portray to the readers that take the initiative in trying to analyze her short story. The use of figurative language and literary devices gives literature like Kate Chopin’s the necessary flare that will help the reader come up with a deeper meaning to this story.
Works Cited
"The Story Of an Hour." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
"Devices." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"123TEL (International) Rates." 123TEL. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
"Trent Nation." Trent Nation. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
This story is entertaining , but yet powerful at the same time. It has many themes that the audience can identify with. Some themes include love, sexual, society standards, and isolation. These themes make the book have several feelings and several interpretations. Not only themes makes the book more intense but also the use of Figurative language. Kate Chopin uses imagery, personification, metaphors, similes, syntax, and mostly symbolism. Symbolism plays an important role throughout the book because it tells the reader exactly how they feel using objects, characters, figures, and colors to represent abstract ideas
In the short story “The story of an Hour”, the author, Kate Chopin, clearly communicates the story’s theme which is having a restricted amount of freedom. In other words, the theme is confinement. In order to develop and explain the theme, Chopin uses irony throughout the entire short story. When the speaker states, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” (REFERENCE) this indicated that Louise Mallard did not refuse the news of her husband’s death. On the contrary, she shed tears of joy because she was no longer stuck in a repressed relationship. Also, she started visualizing her new life full of freedom while confining herself in her bedroom. “The Story of an Hour” uses symbols, foreshadowing and irony to explore Mrs. Allard emotional hour after her husband’s death.
“Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin unveils a widow named Mrs. Louise Mallard in which gets the news of her husband’s death yet, the audience would think she would feel sorrowful, depressed, and dispirited in the outcome her reaction is totally unusual. Meanwhile, day after day as time has gone by Mrs. Mallard slowly comes to a strange realization which alters a new outlook over her husband's death. "And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!" (Chopin, 2). The actuality that she finds a slight bit of happiness upon the death of a person who particularly is so close to her is completely unraveling w...
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
First, through Chopin’s choice of diction, she creates empathy, which helps develop the theme. In the story, Chopin writes, “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
“The Story of the Hour” by Kate Chopin portrays an opposing perspective of marriage by presenting the reader with a woman who is somewhat untroubled by her husbands death. The main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard encounters the sense of freedom rather than sorrow after she got knowledge of her husbands death. After she learns that her husband, Brently, is still alive, it caused her to have a heart attack and die. Even though “The Story of the Hour” was published in the eighteen hundreds, the views of marriage in the story could coincide with this era as well.
Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.
Kate Chopin was a woman and a writer far ahead of her time. She was a realistic fiction writer and one of the leaders and inspirational people in feminism. Her life was tragic and full of irregular events. In fact, this unusual life had an enormous effect on her writings and career. She depicted the lifestyle of her time in her works. In most of her stories, people would find an expansion of her life’s events. In her two stories “The Storm” and “The Story of One Hour” and some of her other works she denoted a lot of her life’s events. Kate Chopin is one of those writers who were influenced by their life and surrounded environment in their fiction writing, and this was very clear in most of her works.
Kate Chopin presents themes of female discovery and identity in her work ”Story of An Hour”. The story takes place around in the 1800 and follows a married woman with heart trouble;Mrs.Mallard; whose husband has recently “died”. One might expect Mrs.Mallard to be sad but ironically she was overjoyed, “free, free, free!” she kept repeating to her self. Chopin shows how Mrs.Mallard truly feels about the death of her husband and the use of repetition shows her enthusiasm about being free from her husband.
Several symbols in Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" create a feeling of comfort, wellness, and wonderfulness within the reader's mind. The first symbol I will speak of is the "comfortable chair" which she sinks into after the news of her husbands' death. Then, I will speak of the open window, which she sits in front of through which she sees many symbols of things that are good. Finally, I will speak of the description of Mrs. Mallard herself and her comfortable situation, which will tie together all the symbols that create the feelings of comfort and wellness in the reader.
In her story “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin (1894) uses imagery and descriptive detail to contrast the rich possibilities for which Mrs. Mallard yearns, given the drab reality of her everyday life. Chopin utilizes explicit words to provide the reader a background on Mrs. Mallard’s position. Chopin uses “She wept at once,” to describe Mrs. Mallard’s emotional reaction once she was told her husband had been “Killed.” Mrs. Mallard cared for and loved her husband; being married was the only way of life that she knew.
In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
Literary devices are useful for giving stories many unexpected twins and turns, makes people imagine what the view looks like, and helps reveal a hidden meaning. In “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, she uses many different literary words to be more descriptive.