By closely reading and analyzing the twoworks by the same author, Essay

By closely reading and analyzing the twoworks by the same author, discuss what lterary devises. e.g metaphor, imagery, symbolism - Essay Example Marriage brought with it the name ‘Kate Chopin,’ which is how she is popularly known among people all over the world. It is true that she used her stories as a medium to communicate her feelings and thoughts like other writers, however, her writings were also a way for her to vent out her depression, which she suffered as a result of loss of her family members, especially the death of her mother and husband. Thus, the nineteenth century feminist author, Kate Chopin, uses various literary devices such as imagery, irony, metaphor, simile, symbolism etc in her works ‘The Storm’ and ‘The Story of an Hour,’ in order to achieve a perfection in the art of her storytelling as well as to guide her readers into the world of her fictional characters, and on a deeper level, to convey to the mass audience the internal strife and struggles in the minds of the women kept suppressed by themselves in the patriarchal society they lived in. The Storm and The Story of an Hour are two of Kate Chopin’s best short stories, where the former portrays the central female character Calixta taking on a ‘supposedly’ immoral role of nurturing an extra marital affair with an old friend, and the latter depicts the protagonist Mrs. Mallard’s â€Å"dramatic hour of awakening into selfhood† (Jamil 215). ... In the beginning of the story, Chopin starts with throwing a clue to the readers about her protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, suffering from â€Å"heart trouble,† which depicts the technique of foreshadowing (Evans). Had not Chopin mentioned the heart problem of Mrs. Mallard before, the story would crumble apart without any real connection and the protagonist’s death at the end cannot be justified at all. Thus, with the help of foreshadowing, the author hints her readers of an even that may happen further on in the story, as with people who suffer from heart problems, it is really difficult to say when they would get a stroke. Although Mrs. Mallard feels upset and cries at the news of her husband’s death, she soon goes to her room and locks herself up. While her sister, Josephine, thinks she is trying to make herself ill, the protagonist is actually under the trance of her new found freedom, one where she is no longer under the control of her husband. Thus, with the use of irony by way of Josephine’s concern for Louise Mallard, Chopin emphasizes more on profound joy and sense of relief that Louise now feels at the terrible news. It is this sense of freedom which enables Louise to drink a â€Å"very elixir of life† at the time, whereas both her sister and her husband’s friend, Richard, think she is in total despair and is drowned in misery due to her husband’s death (Deneau 210). So the readers first see that contrary to women’s usual reaction to their husband’s deaths, Louise does not go into denial or, as the author states, a â€Å"paralyzed inability to accept its signi?cance,† rather, she accepts it and starts