Irony At Its Best

             Do you know what irony is? Irony is defined as the difference or distance between appearance and reality, expectation and result, or meaning and intention. In the short story " The Story of an Hour" there are a number of ironic situations when dealing with Mrs. Mallard. The quote made by Mrs. Mallard " Free. Body and soul free !" is one example. Ironically Mrs. Mallard's husband is not dead, matter of fact he did not even know what happend. " Desiree's Baby" is a short story with an unexpected twist or irony involved in the ending. The appearance of the baby was very shocking and thought to be the mothers fault. The reality was that the father belonged to a beautiful race for which he hated with a passion. The situational irony in Kate Chopin's short story "The Storm" was that Calixta love for her husband was not strong enough to withstand a moment of intimacy. The interaction between Calixta and Alcee easily could have come as a shock to the reader. The ironies throughout the works of Kate Chopin make each short story very interesting.
             In Kate Chopin's short story " The Story of an Hour" there is much irony. The first irony detected is in the way Louise reacts to the news of the death of her husband, Brently Mallard. Before Louise's reaction is revealed, Chopin alludes to how the widow feels by describing the world according to her perception of it after the "horrible news". One of the many ironic points in this story is that she was not killed by the loss of her husband; she was hit with the loss of her freedom. Mrs. Mallard does indeed grieve the loss of her husband, but " When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone". Chopin discharges the inner feelings of her character simultaneously with those that are expected of her. Strong use of irony in a short story yields more honestly in a charcter. She lives for an hour, experiencing rebirth into freedom and death when that freedom is taken away. The i...

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Irony At Its Best. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 10:58, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/100430.html