Ironic, Withholding

The story's very structure is built on ironic juxtapositions. The elements that will later destroy Mrs. Mallard can all be found in the very first paragraph:

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. (1)

Her health, the corresponding condition of delicacy, and the danger of unexpected news are all highlighted. In a twisted way, Mrs. Mallard becomes prepared for her husband's death, but not his life. You might notice that this sentence is written in the passive voice: "great care was taken" to tell Mrs. Mallard the news. The people who take care of Mrs. Mallard this way, though, aren't mentioned until the next paragraph.

Plus, Chopin's whole writing style in this story is kind of a tease. She forces the reader to fill in the blanks. Consider, for example, the way she describes the end of the story. Mrs. Mallard is coming down the stairs when her husband, who is supposed to be dead, walks in; the couple's friend Richards tries to move between them to keep her from sustaining a potentially deadly shock. The narrator simply says, "But Richards was too late" (22). What Richards is "too late" to do, precisely, is left to the reader's imagination.

The next paragraph simply reads, "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills" (23). Between "too late" and "When the doctors came," Mrs. Mallard has died. Yet the precise details of her death go unmentioned; the feelings she might have had go undescribed. This is ironic considering how detailed the narrator has been in sharing with readers the feelings Mrs. Mallard had been experiencing alone in her room. Now, in the most shocking moment of her life, nobody knows what Mrs. Mallard feels.

What’s Up With the Title?

Surprise! This title refers to the story's duration (an hour) and its actual form (a story). Let's talk about duration first. Obviously, anyone who sits down to read this is going to finish a lot sooner than someone who sits down to read a full-length novel, like Chopin's The Awakening. Short stories are generally smaller in scope than novels, so it works well for the subject of "The Story of an Hour" to be limited to events that can happen in only an hour's time. We can read about the things that happen to Mrs. Mallard in just about the same amount of time that it takes for them to happen, which is pretty cool. This lends the whole thing a sense of immediacy – in other words, a feeling that things are happening to Mrs. Mallard right as we read them.

An hour doesn't seem like a lot of time – it's barely an episode of The Vampire Diaries. As soon as it starts, it seems like it's over. An hour, though, can seem like it goes on forever if you're doing something difficult or uncomfortable – like go to the dentist, sit in detention, or if you're on a road trip and desperately looking for a decent public restroom. In Mrs. Mallard's case, processing the tragic news of her husband's death and what it means for the shape of her life makes that hour slow way down and stand still. It may not seem like it takes very long, but a lot of stuff happens to Mrs. Mallard during that hour.

And what about the "story" part? This literary work is both a story and a "story"; it's a story Kate Chopin wrote and a "story" Mrs. Mallard lives. In the title, "story" both describes the form of the tale that Chopin is telling about Mrs. Mallard, as well as the "story" Mrs. Mallard tells herself about the potential her life can hold, once her husband has died.

Yet this title is not exactly what Kate Chopin named this work when she first published it. She originally called this tale "The Dream of an Hour" (source). In this more original version of the title, the idea of emphasizing the duration of the tale still applies. But the more self-referential aspects of the "story" aren't there. Instead, Chopin refers to Mrs. Mallard's experience during the fateful hour as a "dream."

The use of "dream" instead of "story" makes Mrs. Mallard's thoughts during that hour seem even more fanciful and less realistic. It seems like Mrs. Mallard, in thinking them, has less control than she would if she was authoring them as part of a "story." A dream is more ephemeral than a story – you can't hold on to it, you can't reread it like you would a book or retell it with as much recall. A dream escapes. And that's what happens to Mrs. Mallard's briefly imagined ideas of her future by the last line.

What’s Up With the Ending?

The ending of "The Story of an Hour" is a classic fake-out. The event that starts the story off – Mr. Mallard's death – is completely undone in the conclusion. It's the opposite of a linear life story because he starts out dying and ends up alive. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mallard's life, which her friends and family tried so hard to protect at the beginning, is lost at the end.

So, the story ends with an event the characters tried to avoid at the beginning. That's ironic. And, on a second look, pretty brutal. Let's look again at that last line: "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills" (23). Readers can take away one thing for certain from this: Mrs. Mallard has died.

The doctors referenced say it was because of the "joy" that Mrs. Mallard felt upon realizing her husband hadn't died. If that were all, it would be a cruel twist of fate. Her happiness killed her. That would prove just how much she loved her husband. But what if she didn't die of joy? What kind of shock does she really feel upon seeing her husband alive again?

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1030