“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is very intriguing, not only for the emotional change that experience Louise Mallard through the hour following her husband's tragic death but also the way Chopin uses irony in the story. During this analysis of "The Story of an Hour" we will discuss the summary, plot, setting, tone, theme, point of view, emotions of Louise Mallard and other characters involved in the story. Chopin's story uses the feelings of a married woman in the late 1890s, and female identities, to help the reader better understand a woman's married life during that time period. In the story, Louise Mallard is a young woman with heart problems who was recently informed of her husband's death. At first she is sad and then a wonderful feeling begins to invade her, it is happiness; freedom, even if he doesn't feel it for long. “He knew he would cry again when he saw the gentle, tender hands clasped in death; the face that had never looked at her except with love, fixed, gray and dead” (Chopin 2). “Yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often he had not done so” (Chopin 2). Kate Chopin uses images of nature, irony and tragedy to set the theme; role of women in marriage and female identity. “Marriage was considered a sacred institution. Divorce was quite rare in the 1800s and if it were to occur; men were automatically given legal control of all property and children” (Hicks 1). From the point of view in Chopin's tale, the narrator uses a non-participant approach to tell the story from the third-person point of view with limited omniscience. Whether or not the reader is more sympathetic to the narrator who uses the first person depends on the story. In this story, I think reading...... middle of paper...... Rpt. in twentieth-century literary criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Word count: 3263. From the Literature Resource Center.2. An overview of “The Story of an Hour.” Jennifer Hicks. Short stories for students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Word count: 1457. From the Literature Resource Center.3. Emotions in the story of an hour. S. Selina Jamil. The explainer. 67.3 (Spring 2009) p215. Word Count: 2612. From the Literature Resource Center.4. Chopin's "The Story of an Hour". Daniel P. Deneau. Explainer 61.4 (Summer 2003): p210-213. Rpt. in Criticism of short stories. vol. 110. Detroit: Gale. Word Count: 1555. From the Literature Resource Center.5. Chopin, Kate. The story of an hour. 7th ed. Cengage Learning, 2010. 106-108. Press