Irony in ‘The Story of an Hour’: Critical Essay – Free Essay Example

The husband talks a lot about his lack of true freedom in the opening monologue of The Story of an Hour. The idea of the husband not believing his wife comes to the fore in this tale in terms of situational irony. From Webster’s New World College Dictionary, we get this definition: Freedom is said to be the absence of need, or of restraint, in the presence of either free will or compulsion. Mrs. Mallard felt liberated after she had heard that her husband had died. Throughout the book, Kate Chopin’s story, The Story of an Hour helps show how true freedom can only be achieved when one surrenders one’s fetters. 

Mrs. Mallard was living comfortably and getting along well with her husband, but she had heart disease. She was informed that her husband was killed at work, and so she locked herself in her room to be alone. Sister and brother-in-law stepped in to lend their support, but she told them she wanted to be alone, so they left her to cry on her brother’s shoulder. Looking out the window, she realized she had broken free of all of the commitments that had previously bound her. Over and over again ‘outrageously entertaining! Come, go, it’s all free!’ (being confined to a single room with no one to speak to distract her) found Mrs. Mallard experiencing both mental and emotional independence. 

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Coming out of bed, her husband unexpectedly appeared in the doorway, and she fell down in a faint. A hypothetical case of situational irony is shown by the fact that Mrs. Mallard was happy when she thought her husband was dead because she had been liberated from confinement. When her husband returned, she was free, even though she was no longer confined. It is also ironic that many people have heard that the phrase ‘the truth will set you free’. Then her husband came home, and she heard that he was still alive, so it could be said that she was freed or she was worse off. Those who believed she enjoyed her husband’s freedom when he returned home would think she received what was coming to her in the form of his death. When the doctors came in, they told her she had died of a heart attack and when they did, she received the coup de grace of death. This is ironic because, as she was happy to see him safely returned to her and didn’t die as she had assumed she had finished looking for him. 

Thus, the situational irony found in the story of an Hour in Kate Chopin’s The Story of a Freedman’s Wife also demonstrates the theme that true freedom is found only by surrender. She feared that her husband was dead at first, but when she eventually realized that being single would make her genuinely happy, she discovered that he was home. So she no longer considered herself to be liberated, and this saddened her. As a result, she died of a heart attack. While it would sadden her greatly, this proved to be beneficial for Mrs. Mallard and set her free, for which she would have been thankful. Kate Chopin uses foreshadowing to ironically show the reader how something bad can result in joy and happiness.