Irony in The Story of an Hour Essay

Mrs. Mallards story is replete with several instances of irony. Upon hearing of her husbands death, her first reaction was one of a typical wife that has just lost a loving husband. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. She would not have grieved over someone she did not love. Even in the heat of her passion she thinks about her lost love. So there is no doubt Mrs. Mallard loved her husband, she did. However, she would subsequently feel emotions rarely felt by a grieving widow.

Shortly after coming to terms with her husbands death, Mrs. Mallard started pondering what would become of her new life without her husband. She started to feel subtle joyful emotions which eventually led to her whispering the words Free! Body and soul free! Why would a grieving widow be excited about her freedom in the wake of her husbands death? Well apparently Mrs. Mallard had been living a life where didnt have complete freedom of will. She had become an inmate of her marriage and her husbands sudden death was like getting out of jail. In some way she had finished serving her sentence and it was now time to start living for herself. So with this new found joy shes eager to take on the world again, this time by herself but little did she know fate had a different plan for her.

Another extremely ironic instance in this story occurs at the peak of Mrs. Mallards joyful experience. She was finally peering into the future. Fantasizing about the good opportunities life had in store for her and she even said a quick prayer asking for long life. So there came this fateful day and Mrs. Mallard and her sister were descending the stairs of her sisters house as someone was opening the front door. And in came Brently Mallard! It turns out that he was actually alive; as a Matter of fact he had been far from the scene of the accident. Now in an ideal situation this would be the point where a grieving widow would have been overcome with joy and relief but that was not the case for dear Mrs. Mallard. Even thought what happened to her eventually had something to do with joy, it was a heart disease of the joy that kills.

This story depicts how someone can be trapped in an unproductive and unsatisfying reality because of others thoughtlessness, exploitation, and domination. Mrs. Mallards marriage must have been so oppressive and limiting that even death is considered a reasonable means of escape. This leaves me to wonder why Mrs. Mallard never considered divorce as an option earlier in the marriage. Certainly this would have been a more beneficial option for an escape route out of the marriage as it would not require the death of either her or her husband. But on the other hand there isnt enough information in the story to enable us know why or why not divorce was never considered. Perhaps she didnt even realize she was oppressed while she was in the marriage, its possible that it was the news of her husbands death that suddenly opened her eyes to that fact.

Mrs. Mallard went through a roller coaster of emotions from the moment she learnt of her husbands death to the time of her own death. Upon learning of her husband's death she is immediately overcome by sadness. However, once she is alone she allows herself to experience her feelings of joy. Joy at the prospect of being free from repression. She is no more able to staff off the feeling that was approaching her than trying to stop the waves from hitting the shore. Basically stated we are powerless over our feelings. Her situation reminds me of a quote I heard in passing once which goes we can close our eyes to prevent ourselves from seeing what we want to see, but we dont cant close our hearts to prevent us from feeling feelings we dont want to feel.