In The Story of an Hour Chopin plays with irony. I'm just going to draw some of it out. Let's start with the opening. Chopin establishes that Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble within the first line. Because of this the reader can see that this fact is essential to the plot. The next bit of irony is spelled out in paragraph three, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once..." It is clear Mrs. Mallard does not grieve in the way that is expected of her. On a side note, the next sentence uses the phrase "the grief had spent itself," as if her grief had a definite limit. Given the time period of this story and Chopin's background, this could be a comment on expectations of women. In this story the woman was able to grief in her own way and then move on. Without her husband Mrs. Mallard could now have some individual identity. This is the opposite of the social norm of having identity through husbands and dependence on fathers, husbands, and sons.
http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/Serr/blunden1.jpg
The following few paragraphs describe cheery sensations such as "delicious breath of rain", a singer's song, birds chirping, and patches of blue sky. Generally these are not images of grief. Even more shocking is in paragraph sixteen, "'Free! Body and soul free!' she [Mrs. Mallard] kept whispering." When someone dies there is a sense of being trapped by not having control over the situation. Ironically Mrs. Mallard feels free. Once again this could be a Chopin's comment of the entrapment that women feel in the accepted cult of domesticity.
Irony is most apparent in The Story of an Hour in the conclusion. Such care was taken to giving Mrs. Mallard the news while keeping her heart in good condition. She had come to be hopeful for a future of independence. Then her independence was no longer (because Mr.Mallard was alive), her hope was obliterated, and her heart failed.
The next logical question would be why did Chopin end this way? What is she trying to say? I believe Mrs. Mallard's reaction to Mr. Mallard's return was a way of saying that once Woman can see what their freedom could be they cannot live without it. Chopin articulates for women the American cry "live free or die trying," as New Hampshire's motto states (phrase originating in 1809 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die), and Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death!"
Chopin is very successful in keeping her story succinct and shows thought in the composition of the piece as a whole. The fact that the story takes place over an hour allows for an appropriate amount of detail while still keeping the plot simple enough to maintain attention. Each part is there on purpose: to develop some sense of character, foreshadow, etc. There is very little that could be taken out of the story and still maintain the same effect. This follows E.A. Poe's idea of having totality in a story as he stated in his review of Twice-Told Tales in 1842 Graham's Magazine, "without unity of impression, the deepest effects cannot be brought about"(http://www.eapoe.org/works/criticsm/gm542hn1.htm.)
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