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The Story of an Hour
1. Kate Chopin's feminist theme is prominent in "The Story of an Hour." Chopin's 1894 short story echoes many of the points feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton made in her "Declaration of...
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The Story of an Hour
Situational irony occurs in a story when the outcome of an event is the opposite of what one expects. Two paired instances of situational irony create the structure of Kate Chopin's "The Story of...
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The Story of an Hour
Verbal irony is when a character says something but means something else. Taken literally, the character seems to mean one thing. Actually, they mean to communicate something completely different...
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The Story of an Hour
Dramatic irony refers to when the reader or audience knows something that one or more characters do not. In this particular story, we know that Louise Mallard is not in her bedroom, grieving and...
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The Story of an Hour
Irony is created when there is a discrepancy between what we expect to happen and what actually happens. So, one major irony of this story is created when Louise Mallard reacts with joy to news of...
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The Story of an Hour
This quotation is significant because Mrs. Mallard has just learned of her husband's death in a train accident. He was young and the accident was tragic. (Of course, we later learn that the...
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The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin depicts upper class marriage at the turn of the 19th century as confining and largely loveless. When Mrs. Mallard is told her husband dies, the impression given to the reader is that...
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The Story of an Hour
In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," a wife is apparently left widowed when informed sources reveal her husband Mr. Brently Mallard was killed in a "railroad disaster." Although the...
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The Story of an Hour
In "The Story of an Hour," the setting reflects the Victorian Age in which the feme covert laws were in effect. These laws that greatly restricted women and their ownership of property profoundly...
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The Story of an Hour
Perhaps Chopin chooses to withhold the protagonist's first name for so long because Louise Mallard has been denied a true, personal identity for such a long time. While married, she had to "bend...
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The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin was a feminist, and she created a sympathetic character in Louise Mallard. Because she is caring wife who feels sorrow for the untimely death of her husband, she cries when she hears...
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The Story of an Hour
After she receives the news of her husband's death, Louise Mallard understands that she is actually much better off, emotionally, than she ever was when her husband was alive. Though she knows...
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The Story of an Hour
The strict limitations of the setting mirror the strict limitations placed on women during the Victorian era, the time in which Louise Mallard lives. As Louise mentally processes the fact that her...
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The Story of an Hour
The internal conflict in this text is Louise Mallard's. She learns at the beginning of the story that her husband has been killed in a train accident, and immediately after hearing this, she...
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The Story of an Hour
Within the time period of the setting, the reader is given to understand that Mrs. Mallard, who does love her husband, has been repressed under the feme covert laws of the time, and is relieved to...
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The Story of an Hour
Dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows something important that a character in a story does not know. In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin uses dramatic irony at the end of the story when...
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The Story of an Hour
Josephine "whispers" at the door of her sister, Mrs. Mallard, because of what she perceives as the delicate state that Louise Mallard must be in since she has just received news that her husband...
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The Story of an Hour
A reader would likely assume that a woman having just heard about her husband's sudden and dramatic death would be overcome with painful emotion, capable of seeing and hearing only things that are...
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The Story of an Hour
In this paragraph, Mrs. Mallard has come out of the shock and dismay which overwhelmed her when she first learned that her husband had been killed in a "railroad disaster." While she loved her...
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The Story of an Hour
At the end of this story, Louise Mallard dies of "heart disease -- the joy that kills," according to her doctors. However, after reading the story, readers can ascertain Chopin's irony: Louise did...
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Désirée's Baby
Both short stories by Kate Chopin center around women who have an experience that changes how they perceive their own identity. Interestingly, as the stories open, neither woman has been...
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The Story of an Hour
When Louise Mallard goes to her room right after she learns her husband died in a train accident, she locks the door and goes to sit in front of an "open window [in] a comfortable, roomy armchair."...
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The Story of an Hour
Foreshadowing is the use of clues that hint at future events. There are two good examples of foreshadowing in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." The very first sentence hints at Mrs. Mallard's...
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The Story of an Hour
I would imagine that, if one has an underlying condition such as heart disease, high blood pressure, or the like, it is possible to "die of" any extreme emotion that would aggravate such a...
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The Story of an Hour
The setting of this story is the home of Brently and Louise Mallard. Louise's sister, Josephine, breaks the news of her husband's death to Mrs. Mallard, and then Mrs. Mallard proceeds to spend the...
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The Story of an Hour
Taken as an illustration of marriage in the late 19th century, this story shows that a husband's happiness clearly does not correspond to his wife's happiness. In fact, it argues that the woman's...
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The Story of an Hour
In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" the author uses both direct and indirect characterization. Direct characterization is when a writer simply states a character's specific traits. Indirect...
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The Story of an Hour
In "The Story of an Hour," Louise is under the impression that her husband has died. She is initially consumed with grief. But this is temporary. She is then overcome with the joy of being free....
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The Story of an Hour
Yes, I actually pity both Mr. and Mrs. Mallard because neither of them has the life that they want, and they both want reasonable lives. Mr. Mallard wants, I assume, a wife that loves him as much...
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The Story of an Hour
When the story begins, the narrator informs the reader that it is known that Louise Mallard has a heart condition. Her sister, Josephine, is therefore careful in breaking the news that Louise's...
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The Story of an Hour
This quotation, the last line of the story, refers to the first line of the story and the fact that Louise Mallard is believed to have heart trouble. Because of this malady, her sister tries to...
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The Story of an Hour
The first two paragraphs of Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" make it clear that Josephine and Richard perceive their sister and friend as weak and fragile. First of all, it is apparently well-known...
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The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin may be considered an early feminist. In "The Story of an Hour" she posits the idea that a woman's life may actually be better without a husband. It was a radical idea at the time. In...
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The Story of an Hour
Mrs. Mallard is complex because she proves to be multi-dimensional. Upon hearing that her husband has been killed, she cries "with sudden, wild abandonment." This initial reaction suggests that she...
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The Story of an Hour
At the end of Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour," the doctors say that Mrs. Mallard died from a heart attack caused by the "joy" of seeing her husband alive. She was known to have...
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The Story of an Hour
“The Story of an Hour” is a short one, and simple. It tells of a young Mrs. Mallard with a weak heart who learns that her husband has been killed in a work accident. After she sobs...
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The Story of an Hour
In this very short story by Kate Chopin, there are several examples of how the setting reinforces the way Mrs. Mallard feels after she learns about her husband's death. At the opening of the story,...
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The Story of an Hour
You might consider making the claim that Mrs. Mallard is a character with whom Chopin wants readers to sympathize, despite the fact that she seems to rejoice when she learns that her loving husband...
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The Story of an Hour
The main conflict in "The Story of an Hour" is character vs. society. Mrs. Mallard's adversary is not her husband, as some might argue, but society, due to society's expectations for right female...
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The Story of an Hour
A good place to begin would be to consider the reasons why you feel that readers should feel sympathy for Mrs. Mallard, especially considering the fact -- as you point out -- that the news of her...
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The Story of an Hour
Exposition introduces the characters, setting, and overall background to set up the story. Within the first line of “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin introduces both the protagonist...
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The Story of an Hour
Given her initial reaction to the news that her husband had been killed, we might suppose that Mrs. Mallard's marriage was very good and filled with love and devotion. The narrator says, "She wept...
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The Story of an Hour
The central conflict in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" is between the main character, Louise Mallard, and society. The story begins when Louise's sister, Josephine, is attempting to gently...
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The Story of an Hour
Much of the repetition of words or phrases in the story serves to reinforce Louise Mallard's sense of her new freedom. The word "open" is used multiple times: the window in Louise's bedroom is...
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The Story of an Hour
The inciting event is that which begins the problem in a story. In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin it is the "sad message" brought by Mr. Mallard's friend Richard that Bently Mallard has been...
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The Story of an Hour
It is safe to argue that Mrs. Mallard's reactions over the death of her husband range from shock, to wonder, to hope, to excitement, and finally, to freedom. The very last reaction was,...
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The Story of an Hour
The characters with whom we see Mrs. Mallard interact in the story are her sister and her husband's friend Richards. We also are privy to Mrs. Mallard's thoughts about her relationship with her...
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The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" revolves heavily around symbolism. Here are some examples of symbolism at work in the story. The armchair facing the window represents Mrs. Mallard's desire...
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The Story of an Hour
The internal and external conflicts in this story must be inferred from what information we are given. There is a strong internal conflict in Mrs. Mallard, and one clear external conflict is with...
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The Story of an Hour
An upper class woman during the Gilded Age, Mrs. Louise Mallard is a repressed wife, whose property belongs to her husband Bently under the feme covert laws. When she is told that Mr. Mallard has...
