In Kate Chopin’s flash fiction story “The Story of an Hour,” she wants to deliver the morality of the story to the reader that the death is so powerful by using alliteration, atmosphere, and cliché. The scope of the story is set in hour and the where the characters have the liberty of going anywhere and doing anything. Kate’s symbolically uses different characters in her fictional story that makes the story a fiction. The writer uses symbolism and imagery to develop the plot. Her point of view is the omniscient third-person narrator. This is significant in expanding the limit of the narrator behold the protagonist view in the entire story.
Chopin’s choice of the topic seems a perfect fit in the subject discussed by the story. Through a selective use of characters, the story revolves around Louise mallard’s life. She learns of her death and later her husband unexpectedly returns alive. Mallard considers the death of her husband an opportunity to achieve independence and is not sad about it. The short story twists when mallard later dies from the “heart disease” upon the return of Brently. Through an excellent writing style, Kate combines different figures of speech like imagery, alteration, repletion, and symbolism. She is able to create an impact from the short story that is not only quite interesting but also engaging to the reader.
For a start, Chopin uses alliteration in some paragraphs to indicate character’s feelings. “Free, free, free!” (pg.300). an illustration is what Mrs. Mallard said when she heard the news about her husband death that shows how happy she was, and Mrs. Mallard kept repeating. As a reader, assume that she was concerned about her husband, but in the middle of the story, It turned out the opposite that she an indifferent wife. Chopin uses that to evince that she was suffering from her relationships with her husband.
Additionally, Chopin uses atmosphere to illustrate the real meaning of some point. “joy that kills” (301), the doctors declare that because they thought she died from the shock of happiness from finding out that her husband is still alive after all. In fact, she died because of the shock because she thought she would be free and then not, so that resulting causes a shock to her.
To add on that, Chopin uses a cliché to shows the exaggeration of Mrs. Mallard expression about her husband death. “Free! Body and soul free!”(Chopin, 300). To illustrate, that shows not expecting to feel because usu Chopin, Kate. “Story of an Hour.” Eds. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Writing as Revision. Boston: Pearson ally if someone’s husband died they will be broken and sad, but there is an exaggeration of her delight about her husband died even if she will celebrate, but not like this. Just, the writer tries to express confused emotions and gets the reader thinking of the presented paradox. It is interesting to note the unlikely emotional display of the female protagonists when she hears f her husband’s death. Perhaps, the death of Mallard could be a punishment for celebrating her husband’s demise. Through this unlikely turn of events, the story ends.
In conclusion, the hour story is short but with a lot of impact the reader. The issues discussed are relevance to the happenings in the daily life. Though a fictional story, the story covers two parts that include the mallards death and life and the contributing factors that lead to the death. The story is also rich with figures of speech that have been strategically used with specific structural and stylistic techniques. She uses repetition to provide a clear highlight of important points that makes the story easy to reread, understand hence recommended for everyone.
Work Cited
Chopin, Kate. “Story of an Hour.” Eds. Beth Alvarado and Barbara Cully. Writing as Revision. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011. 299-301. Print