Symbolism In 'The Story Of An Hour'

A symbol is an object, person, place or experience that stands for something else, especially a material objects that represent something abstract. Symbols were used as communication devices in early Native American tribes. They are also used for things like super heroes. A child can quickly identify their idol and hero with that certain symbol. Irony is something that is portrayed but is opposite of what it really means. For example, irony can be found in a McDonald’s worker giving a speech about child obesity. It wouldn’t make sense because McDonald’s has been proven to give young children obesity. In the short story, The Story of an Hour, a woman named Louise Mallard who had gotten news of her husband’s passing. She then isolates herself …show more content…
Mallard was a symbol of beauty in the story. “Mrs. Mallard is described as being young and having “ a fair, cam face” symbolizing the beauty…”(123helpme) She was represented as beautiful because of the thoughts she was having. Pus the scenery she was looking at while she was having her realizations were beautiful as well. So that was also one of the reasons why she was described as beautiful. Also the moments before her last hour were beautiful as well because she realized that she was going to have answer to but herself. Then to some people, death is a beautiful thing to happen in human nature. In this case Louise Mallard had a beautiful death because what the way she died, with no pain. Just the disappointment of her Husband’s physical return would kill her.Louise Mallard was described to have the “… innocence of a child”(123helpme). She had this characteristic because she was able to go on and look at the bright side of her Husband’s death. In this case the bright side to her was that she was free from her Husband’s imprisonment as a Victorian wife. Like a child, she was happy to have no control over life, she could now live her life the way she pleased. And the way she was afraid of her realizations, she was afraid of the disappointment that would come to her if someone were to find out about her unusual happiness of her Husband’s death, like a child would be like if the child did something wrong and he didn’t want their parents to …show more content…
An example of situational irony in the story is that Mrs. Mallard is “alive” “Brently Mallard is dead and Mrs. Mallard has fully become alive”.(enotes) After Mr. Mallard’s death, Louise finally the idea of her becoming free and living without the control of her husband makes her become alive. Just the thought of her not having to live with her husband anymore brings the life out of her. Because now she is happy to take on the new life that is coming her way. In the story, it describes her as being hopeless and longing for her death. But now that she feels alive she can life fully the way she wanted to. Another example of situational irony is that Mrs. Mallard is the one that ends up dying and Mr. Mallard is the one that ends being alive “But of course the doctors totally misunderstood the joy that kills her. It is not seeing her husband alive, but her realization that great joy she experienced during that last hour is over”(Hawaii.edu) The heart break that Mrs. Mallard wasn’t the happiness of seeing her husband but the pure disappointment that Louise felt once she saw her husband walk through the door. The glorious hour she had alone in her thoughts of her new life as a widow was over. Her new realization was that she her life happy new life she thought about in an hour, had vanished in the matter of seconds. Her happiness was in the reach of her fingertips, but all of it,