While a variety of approaches can be taken to organize an essay, structure and organization is needed.  When it comes to essays about literature, there seems to be a fairly consistent pattern in how their introductions are organized.  The opening of academic essays that are focused on analyzing a specific work of literature will establish its timbre.  In other words, the scope of the essay is usually evident in the introduction phase of the essay. An essay's introduction will illuminate "the topic and main idea" as well as "preview the rest of [the] essay."  This part of the essay would deliver some insight into the background of the work in question and would usually close with the thesis statement. Organization of the introductory phase in academic writing will place heavy emphasis on ensuring that the thesis statement is clear to the reader and will end up guiding the reader's understanding for the remainder of the paper.

Such organization would follow form in an essay on Chopin's "The Story of an Hour."  I think that the order of such an introduction would consist of several parts.  The first part would be to open by discussing the work itself.  I would expect to see some type of analysis about the reception of Chopin's short story.  This might take the form of how people at the time received the story of Louise Mallard "dying of the joy that kills."  Along these lines, I would expect to see some discussion in the introduction about the work's reception in the literary and academic communities.  Perhaps, there would not be an overwhelming abundance, but I would expect to see something regarding it in the introduction.  Being able to substantiate the story's intellectual meaning helps to bring credence as to why it is being studied, and thus why it is the essay's topic.  Given the story's significance in the literary field, I would expect to see some inclusion on this level.  

With these two elements established, I would expect the introduction to take a more specific turn.   I would expect to see that a bridge from these two parts and into the thesis statement.  From the general reception to the critical and intellectual one, there needs to be some detailing of the topic area of the thesis statement.  This would lead to the closing element of the introduction of the essay in which the thesis statement could be revealed. I would expect to see a progression like this because it helps to provide an overall and specific approach to the relevance of the thesis statement.  This order makes sense because its closing note is the driving force of the essay.  The thesis statement would be a provocative and arguable point.  This means that the rest of the paper would be focused on exploring the ideas within it.  The essay's introduction has established the background for the thesis statement. I would expect to see some type of organization in the essay's introduction which moves from general to specific and leading into the divulging of the thesis statement, which would drive the remainder of the essay.