The Story of an Hour by Kate Choplin was a very ironic story. As the story begins, you can’t help but to feel bad for, Mrs. Mallard. She was introduced as a woman who seems very fragile, and obviously it’s because of her heart problems. In the beginning of the story, the author makes us believe that Mrs. Mallard cares a whole lot about her husband, Brently. The author says that her sister Josephine told the new to her with broken sentences, meaning that she wasn’t sure how to tell her the bad news lightly. When the news was broken to her, she cried in her sisters arms and then made her way to her room, alone. The author speaks about a physical exhaustion that Mrs. Mallard had felt, that reached into her soul. Also how she was just looking out her window, crying similar to a child that had cried itself to sleep. At this point in the story I thought that the story would go on about all the pain she felt or how she would later on deal with the loss. It was very interesting when the author spoke about an intelligent thought that Mrs. Mallard had had because who really thinks in a situation like this. It all became a bit clear when Mrs. Mallard was shouting out free, but was also very ironic. It was very odd because Brently was not sick, he had died in an accident so it couldn’t have been a “My husband was very sick, he’s free from all pain” thing. We later on find out that she herself had been freed from a man who “..had never looked save with love upon her..” It was as if Mrs. Mallard felt relief by his death. When Josephine hears Mrs. Mallard speaking to herself and tells her to stop because it would make her ill, I thought maybe Mrs. Mallard was telling herself these things to console herself, since she did have heart problems. The big twist to the story was when Mrs. Mallard goes downstairs with her sister and we later find out that Mrs. Mallard had actually died of heart disease from joy. Also the fact that her husband Brently had not died.

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I found “The Story of an Hour”, by Kate Chopin very interesting. Throughout the story elements that kept coming across has to be irony and symbolization. It starts of by stating that Mrs. Mallard has a heart problem which right away made me think that something tragic was bound to happen as I continued to read. We then find out about her husband’s death due to a terrible railroad accident. As a normal wife will react towards this type of horrible news Mrs. Mallard was devastated, not wanting to accept the truth.

Mrs. Mallard then takes time to be alone and locks herself into her room where the irony of this story begins to take place. As Ms. Mallard is alone in her room staring through a window, which in the story it will symbolizes the new life she sees for herself. She starts to feel a sense of joy and freedom. The irony of the story is that due to her husband death she knows feels free. Mrs. Mallard is now in control of her “own” life. In the story she repeats to herself, “FREE, FREE, FREE.”  After reading how she felt only makes me assume that while she was living with her husband she was unhappy. I also believe that she really didn’t know how unhappy she was until this happen, until she actually felt the sense of being on her own where she will live for herself.

I also feel as Mrs. Mallard felt a sense of guilt for feeling this way after her husband death. The authors states, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it , fearfully”. This convey that she was afraid of what she was feeling because maybe she understood that it wasn’t normal to have joy or relief in such a terrible situation.

Mrs. Mallard now hopes for a longer life whereas before she was afraid of it being long. The story states “she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that window.” The window was a symbol of life where she saw all kinds of days she will be free, where she smelled fresh air and heard sounds that gave her a new reason to live.  Later in the story we find out that Mr. Mallard was actually alive and was not even near the accident that occur which is also something to think about because in the beginning of the story Richard states that he waited for the second telegram to assure it was him. At the moment of his arrival Mrs. Mallard dies of her heart disease.

Irony also takes place when the author states “When the doctors came they she had died of heart disease—- of joy that kill.” Now we can ask ourselves two questions was it the joy that of seeing her husband again or that fact that she just lost the joy she recently regained after feeling free again? In my opinion I believe that she died due to the fact that she was about to relive the life she had before.

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