Irony In The Story Of An Hour

The idea of marriage, matrimony; in American society is normally viewed with having its positive benefits. Living with your soul mate for the rest of eternity should be the ideal couple’s dream, assurance of financial stability, promise to loyalty, and an oath sworn over the bible to love one another through darkness and light. However, marriage can also can feel more like confinement and pressure to obligate to the stereotypic roles played in a traditional relationship, especially for the woman. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the author’s use of literary techniques creates an effective and intuitive approach on how oppressive one’s marriage can be. In just the short span of an hour in the life of Mrs. Mallard, a married woman with
Mrs. Mallard sudden change of heart is ironic because it was suddenly snatched away by something as everlasting and serious as death, but yet her grieving stopped almost as quickly as it started. The author coincides Mrs. Mallard’s death with her husbands “supposed” death. She does this to ironically elucidate the fact that after the one time Mrs.Mallard was finally free again, and could have unaffected glee that her confining marriage had ripped away from her, her freedom was short lived as it was devoured by death of her own. “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her…..all sorts of days that would be her own” (Chopin 279) This short amount of time before Mrs. Mallard’s death seems to be the only time in Mrs. Mallard’s marriage that she truly seems to feel unrestricted and independent, when she finds out that her husband is dead. The author creates this ironic truth to explain that, before Mrs.Mallard’s heartbreaking death, she never felt like a person who was free to make her own choices, and do what she wanted to do because of the stereotypical role expected of being a wife. Her sense of independence and self-worth became lost in her marriage and ultimately became responsible for her