English Final Exam It is without a doubt that every person who has been alive throughout history has dealt with both joy and despair in their time on Earth. For some, complete and utter heartbreak is something that they cannot recover from and the idea of such joy being taken from their life kills their will to live. Through her clever use of symbolism, imagery, and irony, that Chopin displays in “The Story of an Hour” the life that Mrs. Mallard has been forced to live versus the life she has secretly longed for.
Set in the Nineteenth century, “The Story of an Hour” opens up with the death of Bently Mallard, Louise’s husband. It is through Chopin’s use of symbolism that the audience is able to discern the overpowering grief and elation feels at the thought of her husband’s passing. The first line of the story is used to inform the readers of Mrs. Mallard’s heart issues and, convinced that the news of her husband’s death would utterly devastate Louise Mallard, her sister, Josephine, …show more content…
Initially using both situational and dramatic irony, Chopin uses Josephine’s worry for her sister and Louise’s new-found elation at being a widow by allowing Mrs. Mallard to reveal that she was not making herself ill, “no; she was drinking in [the] very elixir of life.” It is Mrs. Mallard’s unquenchable happiness that makes a normally depressing situation both dramatic and shocking, it is situational irony that takes over when she and Josephine go downstairs to come upon Mr. Mallard walking through the door where “he stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife” only for Louise to, ironically and dramatically, drop dead from the heartbreak of her freedom being taken from her so suddenly, or as the doctor’s claim, the “joy” of seeing her husband; “heart disease—of joy that
Set in the Nineteenth century, “The Story of an Hour” opens up with the death of Bently Mallard, Louise’s husband. It is through Chopin’s use of symbolism that the audience is able to discern the overpowering grief and elation feels at the thought of her husband’s passing. The first line of the story is used to inform the readers of Mrs. Mallard’s heart issues and, convinced that the news of her husband’s death would utterly devastate Louise Mallard, her sister, Josephine, …show more content…
Initially using both situational and dramatic irony, Chopin uses Josephine’s worry for her sister and Louise’s new-found elation at being a widow by allowing Mrs. Mallard to reveal that she was not making herself ill, “no; she was drinking in [the] very elixir of life.” It is Mrs. Mallard’s unquenchable happiness that makes a normally depressing situation both dramatic and shocking, it is situational irony that takes over when she and Josephine go downstairs to come upon Mr. Mallard walking through the door where “he stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife” only for Louise to, ironically and dramatically, drop dead from the heartbreak of her freedom being taken from her so suddenly, or as the doctor’s claim, the “joy” of seeing her husband; “heart disease—of joy that