Mid-term writing test

Part A : Short-answer questions

1. What is Louis Mallard’s opinion of marriage? Indicate the paragraph that suggests it?

She does not have a very nice opinion of marriage. She believes that her husband imposed his will to her, like everyone tries to do with their husband or wife. We can observe this opinion of hers in the twelfth paragraph.


3. How does she feel about her future as a widow? Cite the line in the text, using just the first few words, then a series of dots …?

She feels quite confident that a bright future lies ahead of her : ‘’But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come …’’


5. Why is there so much description of what is outside the window when Louise is alone in her room?

The reason it is described so much is because it reflects the future that she is about to start imagining : it is a bright spring day, with life coming back to the nature. After the rainfall, patches of blue sky start to show through the clouds.


7. Explain how Louise can feel joy and sadness at the same time?

She feels sad because her husband is dead, and he might not have deserved it. He always treated her with love. On the other hand, she never really loved him, and his death will allow her to care for herself and to live her life free of any obligation.



Part B : Development question

One could wonder how a wife be happy that her husband his dead. Kate Chopin’s short story ‘’The Story of an hour’’ explores the subject. The author uses irony to tell her opinion of relationships. Irony is first used to show the contradiction in Louise Mallard’s feelings and the character’s opinion of marriage. It is also present at the very end, where we can imagine the huge difference between the wife and husband’s respective reaction to a similar situation.

At first, and for the biggest part of the text, irony resides in Louise Mallard’s contradictive feelings. When she learns the death of her husband, she falls in deep grief. After all, it was her husband, who always loved her; his death could not leave her indifferent. However, after the very strong initial shock, an obvious reality comes to her mind : she did not really love him, and now she has a whole new life in front of her. This can only make her happy. It is very ironic that such a grieving event as the death of her husband brings so much joy to a wife, while on the other hand, in the author and character’s point of view, it is very locigal. Men an women continuously try to impose their will to each other; when one dies, the other is allowed to grow free.

Irony is also used at the end of the story. Louise is so happy because of her husband’s death that she has an heart attack and dies. Brently Mallard, however, was not really dead, and when he comes home, he finds his wife dead. For Louise, Brently’s death meant the beginning of a new, better life. But the roles get inverted, and it is Brently who actually looses his wife. The little we know of him lets us think that he will be deeply grieved of her death : he ‘’had never looked save with love upon her’’. It is ironic that in a marriage – where, supposedly, the lovers are the most unite – the wife and the husband react in complete different ways to an identical situation.

This short story makes good use of irony from the beginning to the end, and it expresses an opinion of marriage. It is used to show that men and women tend to try to control the other. It also demonstrates how the reaction of two life partners to a same situation may differ completely. Kate Chopin seems to think that for these reasons, marriage is not a good thing.

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