In the two stories that Kate Chopin wrote, "The Story of an Hour" and "Desiree's Baby", she uses irony though much of both stories. And the way she uses irony in both of these stories are quite similar. They both end up with the same tragic result of a woman dying in their seemingly male dominated world. In the short story "The Story of an Hour", Chopin leads the reader to believe that the story may have a happy ending. But the fate of Mrs. Mallard, the main character, had the same ironic ending as Desiree, the main character in "Desiree's Baby".

In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," there is much irony. Louise Mallard is about to be told about the death of her husband, Brently Mallard. This is for sure to take a toll on an old woman with a bad heart condition. One can start to feel the irony right after she is told of her husband's death. She retreats to her room alone where she sits in a comfortable chair and stares out the window. It is what she sees out the window that shows some irony of the story. Through the window, Louise sees "the tops of trees that were all aquiver with new spring life." (182) The irony here represents that n

ow Louise will have a new life. She now felt that she could live her life the way she had always wanted. "There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself." (182) Patches of blue skies showing through the clouds, the delicious smell of rain in the air, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. All these descriptions are irony that represent the new life that Mrs. Mallard was about to live. But this is when the story takes a different turn. Just as Louise was about to start living her fresh new life, Kate Chopin shocks the reader when Louise discovers that her husband was not dead after all. At the sight of seeing her husband standing at the door, Louise dies. The doctors said "she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills." (183) One has to believe that the real irony of this story is that Louise had lived under this man unhappily but still stayed with him. "She had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not." (183) But she had never really lived her life the way she wanted. Now that her husband had died, she was free and was about to life her life totally different. Up until the sight of her husband, she was free and dreamed about living her life the way she wanted to live it. Even though the characters in the story seem to think that Mrs. Mallard died from the joy of seeing her husband alive, the re

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Approximate Word count = 928
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)