Wangping121201116

Selected Readings in British and American Literature

HanQiqun

June,08,2015

Irony Analysis of the story of an hour

Guerin concludes that the formalistic critic deals with irony and paradox，with symbols and with the tensions that result from multiple interactions within the organic form of the literary piece.( Guerin 118) "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is a short story that there is a "deeper level of irony in the story" in it.

The short story expresses what happened to Louise Mallard after hearing of her husband Brently’s death in a railroad disaster. Since Mrs. Mallard suffers has heart problems, her sister Josephine told her the horrific news in a gentle way. After crying for a while, she went to her room alone and locked herself there. She should have been mournful and hopeless because of her husband’s death. However, she felt

somewhat excited and frenzy. "Free! Body and soul free!" is what she really got from his death. After she accepted her husband’s death and realized she was free then, her husband came back safely. Finally she died. Although she died from the shock of seeing her living husband, the doctor said she was killed by joy. Though Chopin sympathizes the heroine, she puts bitter irony on her, meanwhile her attitude to the independent freedom is contradictory.(周亚萍 221）From the above introduction some perfect examples of irony use can be easily found. Here are the analysis of two of them.

One is that Josephine was worried that Mrs. Mallard was too sad to lock herself in her room, making herself ill. However, She was actually in her room enjoying the coming of her new free life. That's both situational and dramatic irony. It is ironic for the author to describe the new spring life. “the tops of trees that were aquiver with the new spring life.” Winter had gone and spring came. This indicate that she felt a surge of new life after her husband died. Although she realized that she should be sad and she tried to resist that kind of free joy. “ she was striving to beat it back with her will”, she just lost control and said freedom over and over again. Was this what a

woman that loses her husband should do? This kind of dramatic irony strongly reflected that her marriage wasn’t happy and lacked freedom though her husband treated her gently.

Another example is that Mrs. Mallard dies from the shock of seeing her husband. The doctors say she died from "the joy that kills." Readers all know that Mrs. Mallard didn’t die from joy. That's dramatic irony. She opened the door and made her self like “a goddess of Victory”. Seeing her husband still alive and coming in, she immediately died from heart disease. Everyone believed that she was killed by joy of seeing her husband alive. The great irony is that she was killed by losing her freedom regained a few minutes ago. But only readers know the real ironic meaning of it. How difficult it is for women to gain freedom from their stressed marriage!

The story ended with the loss of Mrs. Mallard’s newfound freedom. There

are many other examples of irony use and Chopin’s irony aims at “freedom” itself. It is clear through those uses of irony that during 19th century, marriage was the durance of women.

Works Cited

Guerin. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Foreign Language

Teaching and Research press, 2005

周亚萍.一个小时的故事中的讽刺艺术.外语论坛科技视界,2012 ,9,26

第二篇：The Analysis of The Story of an Hour对一小时故事的分析

The Analysis of The Story of an Hour

The story of an hour is about a woman who gained the “precious” freedom when informed the accidental death of her husband, but disappointed to die when she saw her husband alive. All these things happened within an hour. I will analyze it from these four perspectives: figure of speech, volatility of emotion, environmental description and the theme.

Figure of speech

In this story, writer uses several figures of speech which are so specific and vivid that readers could easily make sense of the story. Take symbolism and euphemism for example. “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it…..she was striving to beat it back….”. Actually, “this thing” refers to the joy or freedom of her husband’s death. Writer’s subtle symbolism tells the woman’s real feeling euphemistically. And this suspense causes a mysterious veil that readers will be attracted to uncover it.

Volatility of emotion

I counted carefully. Women’s emotion varied about 6 times. They are: suddenly sad weeping, calming down, feared, excited, joyful, disappointed. In the whole story, writer uses most of his ink describing the women’s volatile psychological emotion, which succeed to attract reader’s attention and contributed to the development of the whole story.

Environmental description

After the woman went back to her room alone, she saw “the delicious breath of rain”, “countless sparrows’ twittering”. All these are “new spring life”. Actually, these are pleasant things which seem unfit for the sad atmosphere. But they signify a “new spring life” of the woman. All these vivid environmental describes are the hints for shadowing the later developments of woman’s emotion.

Theme

This ironic story reflected women’s freedom is shackled by men. Women are eager to get rid of it. But it seems that women are always belonging to the weak group. So the theme of this story is to appeal feminism.