"The Story of an Hour" Literary Elements

Option 2: "Chopin is an artist in her use of irony. Preparation for the ending is provided by clues or foreshadowing embedded in the story. Identify these and explain how each contributes to the conclusion."

    Separate examples of foreshadow lead to the conclusion in their own unique way and through different techniques exemplify individual elements of the ending. The majority of the foreshadowing, though, is directed towards Mrs. Mallard's death. 

    The first example of Chopin's use of foreshadowing is the development of Mrs. Mallard’s character. The simple fact that "Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble" is foreshadowing in its own rite. When this statement is taken literally and figuratively, both hint at the conclusion of the story. When the metaphorical implications are analyzed, Mrs. Mallard’s heart disease or “heartbreak” provides justification for the temporary elation she experiences upon hearing the grave news of her husband’s passing. Labeling the heartbreak of Mrs. Mallard’s marriage a “heart disease” also suggests that, like heart disease, heart ache is not easily cured; which, therefore, foreshadows her dramatic reaction to seeing her husband. The foreshadowing of the literal “heart disease” is much more apparent. Mrs. Mallard’s physical ailment is ultimately the direct cause of her “[death] of heart disease.” Symptoms of cardiac episodes, breathing “tumultuously,” “pulses beat(ing) fast” and “coursing blood” also foreshadow her death.

    Another exhibition of foreshadowing is how Mrs. Mallard senses “something coming to her.” This could possibly refer to her “knowing” or at least sensing her impending death. The seemingly perpetual joy she models and experiences parallels many peoples’ perception of death—freeing (“Free body and soul free”), unceasingly approaching (“creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through… the air”), untimely, unexpected, and, ultimately: frightening (“[Mrs. Mallard had] a look of terror”).

    The entirety of the short story is ironic. The majority of the irony is in the briefness of Mrs. Mallard’s bliss. Just as Mrs. Mallard truly feels she has her life to herself, where “there would be no one to live for… (and) she would live for herself,” all of her hopes are destroyed. Just as life is worth living, her life is taken away by the “joy that kills.”

    Through exploration of literal and metaphorical analyses of “heart disease” and of commonly assumed aspects of death, the reader can accurately foreshadow Mrs. Mallard’s death long before it even takes place.