"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin in "The Story of an Hour" tells of the way one woman responds to the reported death of her husband in a train accident. The author presents a picture of a relationship or a person that is perceived by the outside world in a way that is very different from the reality.
1. It was believed that the news of her husband's death would affect Mrs. Mallard so as to aggravate her heart trouble and perhaps cause her death. In fact, she is not affected as much as people believed she would be.
2. Mrs. Mallard did not show an inability to understand the significance of the news but instead wept at once, then went to her room to be alone. Later, she feels free.
3. What is coming to her is freedom and the realization that she is free. This something can be seen as an awareness that she is not unhappy at her husband's death at all.
4. She has been living for her husband, and now she realizes she can live for herself. She is free of the control imposed on her by another, by her husband.
5. What kills her is the joy that kills, the happiness that overtaxes her heart, a happiness derived from her realization that she is truly free.
1. Josephine tells her sister about her husband's death, and Mrs. Mallard reacts oddly. Mrs. Mallard waits for something to come to her and thinks about her husband's death, and the result is a feeling of freedom. Mrs. Mallard embraces freedom with great joy, and it kills her.
These are all instances where the effect would not normally be assumed from the cause.
2. The opening paragraph foreshadows what is to come in the last while at the same time showing the way people feel about how a woman will react, giving the only direct description of Mrs. Mallard as a woman with a heart condition. This is then the central image of her and prepares us first for her ironic joy and then for her death.
3. The central irony is in the way Mrs. Mal...