How Does Kate Chopin Use Imagery In The Story Of An Hour

Throughout time, literature has played an active role in today's society. Similarly, literature has fuelled the minds of readers by enabling them access to their imagination. Furthermore, it allows readers to create and explore ideas, emotions, and pictures within their minds. In fact, imagery is one of the greatest gifts an author can present to its readers. Within any form of writing, imagery is inevitable. Whether it is descriptive or figurative, imagery surrounds the reader, drawing them into the writer's world of imagination. Although it is commonly used to create a visual for the readers, it can also create a connotation; thus offering the readers additional insight behind specific imagery used within a piece. Specifically, in Kate Chopin's

However, in "The Story of an Hour" it represents the exact opposite. After confining herself to her bedroom, Mrs. Mallard sits in the armchair, facing the open window out of exhaustion from the news she has received. In this particular scene, Chopin paints a beautiful image for the readers to experience the significance that comes from looking out the window. "In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves" (1). Through this quote, it is evident that Mrs. Mallard experiences confinement in the sense that, everything is moving forward without her. She feels as though she is confined to grieve over the loss of her husband, yet everything outside of this window is free to do as they please. To move along in life, not worrying about the past, but continuing on in the present. By making this realization, this now transforms the room into an imprisonment and less of an escape, which it was initially intended to be. Moreover, this further progresses the theme of confinement within the story, as the window, acts as a buffer between worlds; the one in which Mrs. Mallard would like to join and the room she now wants to remove herself