The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the short stories "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe and "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Specifically it will discuss the relationship between setting and meaning in the two works. Disquieting to the reader describes these two works. Each uses setting and meaning to indicate troubled relationships and dark secrets. Poe's work concerns vengeance and murder, while Chopin's concerns the hope and freedom of a woman too long dominated by a man. Each work suggests ills in society and with the characters, and each uses these themes to create a work that is memorable and disturbing at the same time.
             In "The Story of an Hour," most of the action takes place in an upstairs bedroom where Mrs. Mallard contemplates the news of the death of her husband and her impending freedom. Chopin writes, "But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome" (Chopin 260). The meaning of this story is quite clear, and the stark setting of the bedroom gives it extra depth. Mrs. Mallard is sorry her husband has died, but she is absolutely giddy in her feeling of joy that accompanies the news. For once, she will be able to live her own life, without the input or domination of another, and she cannot wait to experience that feeling. Chopin's meaning is that marriage is an institution infused with male dominance and opinion, and that women of the time had little freedom or ability to assert their own independence. Mrs. Mallard could never say these things to her husband, but she can feel them in her heart, and she does. She dies at the end of the story from shock, but it also could be from profound disappointment that her "freedom" lasted such a short time.
             "The Cask of Amontillado" is a darker, more sinister story about revenge and murder, but it carries s...