"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is a story filled with figurative language. In this story a woman, Louise, gets the news of her husband passing in a work accident and instead of being heartbroken, like she was at first, her heart is filled with happiness and excitement because she is wanting the freedom to do what she wants. She thinks this is what she going to get but in the end there is a twist. At the end of the story her husband walks in, alive and well, and she falls dead from her heart "breaking," or so the doctor says. From beginning to end, Chopin never stops making the reader wonder what is going to happen next but by the end of the story if one looks back on what they just read they will notice the clues she was hurling at the reader the whole time. In "The Story of an Hour", Kate Chopin uses symbolism, foreshadowing and especially irony to guide the reader along in her short story. 

First of all, symbolism plays a crucial part in this story. One of the symbols used in the story is when the main character, Louise Mallard, is sitting in front of the window after she hears the news of her husband's passing. The window symbolizes that she is still not all the way free yet but she is so close she can feel it. "Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul" (Chopin). This quote explains the way she is feeling and how she is tired of feeling this certain way. The window is open and everything outside of the window is free but from where she is sitting she is still trapped. Her husband dying is like the window to the free world opening up. When she thought he was dead she saw all the opportunities she would have and getting to do what she wanted with her life. Another symbol Chopin uses is Louise's heart troubles. These problems represent her attitude towards her marriage and her lack of freedom because of her marriage. In marriages in this time women were expected to do for the husband and be complete house wives but that is not what Louise wanted. She could keep living her unhappy life but this accident makes it where she might not have to. Chopin also uses her heart trouble, which Louise's sister believes she has from the incident, as a literal problem that Mrs. Mallard has.  One last symbol that is used is the spring season. When the reader thinks about spring we think of new beginnings and fresh blooms, and this is precisely how Louise looked upon the situation of her husband dying. "She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life." (Chopin). This quote shows that life without Mr. Mallard would still go on and she has not lost everything. This event was going to be her fresh start to her new found independence. All of these symbols relate to her freedom she thought she was going to get to experience without having to play the role of the wife anymore and show how hopeful she was to find happiness in her life. 

Another one of the main literary devices Chopin uses is foreshadowing. In the line, "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's "death" (Chopin). Chopin gives the readers an idea of what is to come. This foreshadowing indicates that something bad is going to happen to Mrs. Mallard but the readers are just not sure what it is. By them saying that her heart would act up at the thought of death there is no way it would not act up when her husband expectantly shows up. Just as they predicted her heart does stop at the sight of her husband coming through the door. A second example of foreshadowing that Chopin uses is the blue sky and birds to foreshadow the freedom and relief Louise feels when she is told of the death of her husband and gives her hope for the future. If she had used stormy skies with thunder and lightning there would have been a much gloomier feel and how she felt would have been unsure. Instead since she did not go that route, we as readers know that she is ecstatic over the news once she sees what she will be gaining. "But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air" (Chopin). The life outside is still so beautiful to her and the reader can tell by the way Chopin talks about the scenery of the spring. This aids in the foreshadowing that she knows everything is going to better and she will have more opportunity. Going along with that same idea is when Chopin is describing Mrs. Mallard's face as being beautiful but "whose lines bespoke repression" (Chopin). This is telling us that she is oppressed by her marriage and that she is having a hard time staying in it until she thinks her husband has passed. All she is wants is to be free from the life that she is living and start all new where all she has to be worried about is herself and what she wants to do.

Along with being symbolic and foreshadowing, this is an ironic story as a whole. Chopin uses irony as a literary device as she develops the story. It all begins at the beginning of the story when Josephine and Richards want to break the news of the death of her husband. This is ironic because they think it is going to break her heart but in all reality it is the best news they could have given her. She is somewhat confused over the news because that gives her the one thing she is striving for in life, which is freedom from her role of Brently Mallard's wife, but she also loves her husband her husband. The reader can see this in the quote "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms" (Chopin). It is ironic that she "wept" at the news because of how much freedom it promised her, which when she thinks about it she becomes more accustomed to the idea. She cries at first because she has lost someone she loves even if the life she had with him was not perfect. Her sister thinks that Louise might die in the room after the news of her husband's death and this is ironic because as she stares out the open window she realizes all the opportunities she now has and this is one of the happiest hours of her life. Her death at the end is also ironic. She thought she was about to finally live the life she has always wanted but in reality that all comes to end really quickly. The most ironic thing is that the doctor diagnoses her with being so happy that her husband was alive. This is beyond ironic because it is quite the opposite. She dies from the shock of her husband being alive and her not getting to live her dreams and not getting out of her repressed life. Louise dying at the end of "joy that kills" is the most ironic turn to a story and the reader gets a good shock from it (Chopin).

As we can see Kate Chopin uses many literary devices to navigate her way through this story. Her use of irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing make "The Story of an Hour" a huge success and an interesting read. The ending is one that the reader can never see coming, unless they were paying close attention to the foreshadowing taking place throughout the story, and the shock of seeing her husband alive was just so crazy for Louise and for the reader. Chopin takes a huge turn at the end and Mrs. Mallard ends up being the one who dies from her so called heart troubles, which the author uses in a literal and figurative way. 

