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Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis Essay

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“The Story of an Hour” is written by Kate Chopin. The main character in this story is Louise Mallard, a married woman in the 19th century who has a heart defect, she receives news that her husband died in an accident. After hearing the news of her husband she goes into solitude into her room where she finds herself not has sad about her husband but feeling some relief that she can live her own life and gains a new sense of freedom that she will have in the later days to come. This is where the theme of freedom comes in, this is seen using many literary elements throughout the story some of these would be foreshadowing, irony, and symbols to show Mrs. Mallard new- found freedom from her “late” husband. Kate uses many literary elements in the story the first element used would be foreshadowing. She used foreshadowing in the first sentence of the story saying “ Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband 's death.” This line foreshadows the end of the story when she Mrs. Mallard dies because of her heart condition. Kate uses foreshadowing also by putting quotation marks around the …show more content…

Many stories use these elements of writing, strong symbolism appeals the senses and explains the strength of the emotions the character is experiencing. There is a lot of strong symbolism and imagery in this story that also goes along with situational and dramatic irony which both appear in the story. When Brentley Mallard ends up being alive at the end would be the situational irony because it was the opposite of what happened, even though it was foreshadowed he was not dead. The dramatic irony is her dying of “joy”. These literary elements lead to the theme of freedom that Louise was

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Mallard, one can conclude that she suffers defeat by being the lesser of her marriage. After years of being an accessory to her husband, Mrs. Mallard could not help but to feel completely taken with pleasure at the thought of her husband’s supposed death. In her mind, her husband’s death meant that she would finally be open to the world, that she could now live her life in whichever way she dreams. This new-found feeling of freedom caused her to act in ways she would never consider around her husband. She locks herself into her room to collect her exuberant thoughts and to confirm it to herself that she no longer must live according to her condescending

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