The Story of an Hour

by Kate Chopin

The Story of an Hour: Situational Irony 1 key example

Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Louise's Death:

Louise’s death at the end of the story is both situationally and dramatically ironic. Believing that her husband Brently was killed in a railroad accident, Louise is so shocked when he walks through the front door that she dies of a heart attack:

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

But Richards was too late.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.