Whereas multiple aspects of The Story of an Hour and The Interlopers cause the two stories to be quite different, the use of situational irony gave both an unexpected end. Seeing that the settings of the two stories are so vastly different, it’s nearly impossible to find any similarities between the two. Nonetheless, if you search carefully, you may just find that they have some similarities after all.
The Story of an Hour occurs in a house in an American city, while The Interlopers takes place in the middle of a European wood. Although neither story gives a date, considering the places of the story and the time that the authors lived in, it can be assumed that both took place in the late 1800’s. The Interlopers is set not only in the woods, but on a snowy, winter night. However, The Story of an Hour happens in early spring “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” (Chopin, paragraph 4, sentence 1)
After the Setting, the next element of a short story is the plot. Both
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In The Story of an Hour the conflict is man vs. self in view of Mrs. Mallard struggling against her inner joy that eventually consumes her. In the end when her joy is cut short, the lack of it kills Mrs. Mallard instantly “. . . they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.” (Chopin, paragraph 20, sentence 1) On the contrary, in The Interlopers the conflict begins as man vs. man when Ulrich and George are about to kill each other “The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind.” (Saki, lines 47-49), then it switches to man vs. nature when the tree falls on top of them. Not only are they all different specific conflicts, but if you notice The Story of an Hour had only inner conflict whereas The Interlopers had only outer