How is the situation of "The Story of an Hour" ironic in several ways?

Answer 1

I don't know about it being ironic in several ways. For those on the outside looking in, they think the wife died from overwhelming happiness at seeing her husband return home alive and well after being told that he had died. 'The joy that kills' For those on the inside--from the wife's perspective--now that she was happy he was dead, joyous even at the possibilities her life could now go, experience, whatnot. It wasn't joy that killed her. It was probably shock and overwhelming anger/disappointment/frustration that she was still stuck, still trapped, still miserable...she wasn't free and could never be free as long as he was alive.

Answer 2

Situational Irony- The reader expects a woman who hears of her husbands death to ask questions, go into denial, etc., but Mrs Mallard accepts without question and returns to her room.

The reader also expects Mrs. Mallard to go to her room and agonize over her husband's death. Instead we find her looking out the window and realizing that she is now free. She sees a new life for herself.

Dramatic Irony- When Mrs. Mallard's husband returns alive, she dies of heart failure. Of course the doctor believes that she has died of joy at her husband's return. The audience knows that she actually died of disappointment.


Of course, with her death, she is now actually free from the oppression she felt when she was alive.