Diction In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

Are most marriages as easy and happy as they appear to be? The short story, “The Story of an hour,” by Kate Chopin, discusses one of many correct circumstantial answers to the previous question. Through Chopin’s use of diction and syntax, the idea of marriage being constricting is emphasized. When Mrs. Mallard is alone in her room after she finds out that her husband died, she thinks about her future without Mr. Mallard and says, “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 a fellow-creature.” This quote tells us that her husband was restricting her from being free and living her own life. This relates to the idea of marriage being constricting through the author’s use of syntax and diction. The author’s sentence …show more content…
Mallard was almost having a ‘wake up call’ and her life was about to become better for her, even after her tragic loss. Later on, Mrs. Mallard looks at her marriage in a more detailed and specific perspective that analyzes the actual emotional connection between the wedded couple. She realizes, “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!” In this quote, the author uses syntax by including a exclamatory statement, “What did it matter!” to show us the intense emotions of Mrs. Mallard. This use of syntax tells us that at this point in Mrs. Mallard’s life, she does not care for her husband anymore since he died. Even if she loved him while he was living, it didn’t matter to her and she wasn’t going to let her feelings for her deceased husband get in her way of a life of freedom and possibility that her marriage constricted her of. These pieces of evidence both support the claim of the main idea of the short