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Irony is mightier than the sword In "The story of an hour," Kate Chopin describes a woman, Mrs. Mallard, who goes through a transformation and that takes her on a path were she feels dead, alive, then dead again. One of the most influential short story writers for the struggle for the liberation of women during the late nineteenth century, during her later years Chopin was ostracized by the literary society largely because of her …

…before the news, be born-Mrs. Mallard after the news, and ultimately die-at the sight of her husband, based on the assumption that the cause of her death was that. On a larger scale it is pun, playing on the theme of this story. The expectations the reader has are once again wrong if you take the literal meaning of the title, just as our expectations are wrong when it comes to women according to Chopin.