Story Of An Hour Situational Irony Analysis

Have you ever felt so happy about something, that when you found out it wasn’t true, you felt like dying? Well, that’s what happened to Mrs. Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”. Mrs. Mallard’s sister came home to tell her that her husband had died. It was an arranged marriage, so she wasn’t really too upset about it. At first she felt pretty bad, but then she realized that she was free. He had been controlling her ever since they got married. She started getting really excited, but when she came downstairs, she saw something that punched her right in the heart… literally. Her husband came home and wasn’t dead. She had a heart problem, so the disappointment killed her. This story is filled with irony. There is dramatic and situational irony. The situational irony that I think stands out the most, is the one right at the end. It was used very well. Mrs. Mallard is happy that she is free because her husband died, and then all the happiness just blows up in her face. Right as …show more content…
This went on for almost the whole story. When Mrs. Mallard’s sister told Mrs. Mallard that her husband died, she went to her room to be alone for a while. Nobody knew it, but while she was in there, she was thinking about how she never really was happy with Mr. Mallard. She got more and more excited until she was filled with joy that she was free now. No other character in the story knew this, however. They all thought that she was depressed that her husband had died. The reader is the only person other than Mrs. Mallard herself that knows she is happy. I think that this type of irony was used well, too. The story was built off of her excitement that the death of her husband had occurred, and nobody knew about it. That’s what made the story interesting. If this wasn’t included, it would be hard to really understand why Mrs. Mallard died at the end. It would make the story completely different. Barely anything would be interpreted the