Kate Chopin's "The Story of An Hour"

Kate Chopin's "The Story of An Hour" is a short story about a woman who is told that her husband has been killed in an accident. It's as if she has mixed emotions about the death of her husband. One minute she is sad and the next minute she is kind of happy about it because she will finally have the chance to do what she pleases when she pleases. She has discovered a new found freedom within the death of her husband. In the last line of "The Story of An Hour" it states, "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills." This quote is the climatic moment in the story, yet it is also the resolution . The words "of the joy that kills" represent verbal irony. Throughout the story it is said that she was sad about the death of her husband but she only loved him sometimes. Although she was mourning, she was also celebrating her freedom at the same time. "'Free! Body and soul free!' she kept whispering." At the end of the story when she found out her husband was really alive it was as if her dreams of being free were crushed, she would never get the chance to live for herself. When she saw her husband at the front door, just the sight of him killed her. Something that had once brought her joy, killed her in the end.