Non-ironic turning ironic contextually:
Multiple context-determined irony in
‘‘The Story of an Hour’’
DAN SHEN
Abstract
This article defines and discusses a type of irony that has eluded existing classifications, namely,“context-determined irony.” Although existing types of irony –
whether called “verbal” or “situational” or modified by some other terms – are
in varying degrees related to context, none of them is really context-determined.
Compared with verbal or situational irony, “context-determined irony” generates more textual tension and semantic density due to the co-existence of the
conventionally positive meaning and the contextually determined ironic meaning. It is revealed that such irony implicitly permeates Kate Chopin’s “The Story
of an Hour” (1894), a textual analysis that is backed up by intertextual and
extratextual considerations.
1.
Introduction
Irony is usually classified into two basic categories: verbal and situational, the
former involving an incongruity between words and their meaning, and the
latter a discrepancy between actions and their results (Cuddon 1979: 335–340;
Fowler 1973: 101–112; Booth 1974; Muecke 1982; Colebrook 2004). This essay
directs attention to what may be designated “context-determined irony,”1 that is,
words that mean what they say or actions that are non-ironic, among other things,
become ironic in a given context. Such irony implicitly permeates Kate Chopin’s
“The Story of an Hour” (written in April 1894, originally published under the
title “The Dream of an Hour”2 ). In what follows, I will first define the concept
of “context-determined irony” in relation to conventional types of irony, then
reveal how “The Story of an Hour” is imbued with such irony in various forms,
which interacts with conventional types of irony. To shed further light on the text,
I will proceed to intertextual and extratextual investigations which may function
to test, support or supplement the findings of the intratextual exploration.
JLS 38 (2009), 115–130
DOI 10.1515/jlse.2009.007
0341-7638/09/038–115
© Walter de Gruyter
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Unique “context-determined irony”
In terms of verbal irony, although it needs to be understood in context (for
instance, someone’s saying, “What a nice day!” on a very bad day), the irony
essentially arises from the incongruity between the surface meaning and the
intended or underlying meaning of the words themselves. As regards situational
irony, it is generated by the discrepancy between an action and its own unexpected
or undesired result. Classical literary examples include “the irony of events in
Troilus and Cressida where the fine speeches and grandiose ideas eventually
produce nothing, except the equivalent of a ridiculous mus,” or the tragic irony
in King Lear where Lear rejects the daughter who loves him most (Cuddon 1979:
337). Here are some non-literary examples:
(i)
Ironically, it was the year that he was given a wild-card entry, and not as a
seeded player, that the Croatian won the title. (Colebrook 2004: 13)
(ii) When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, all
of his shots initially missed the President; however a bullet ricocheted off
the bullet-proof windows of the Presidential limousine and struck Reagan
in the chest. (“Irony,” Wikipedia3)
(iii) the irony of Ireland’s copying the nation she most hated (The American
Heritage Dictionary, p. 924)
If context is only relevant to – significantly, not determinant of – verbal irony
(an incongruity between surface and intended meanings), it has even less or
simply no role to play in “situational irony” since the irony is generated by the
discordance between an event (or an entity) and its unexpected result. In the
above example (i), although there is a temporal reference “it was the year,” the
irony essentially comes from the non-seeded player’s winning the title (compare:
“Although he was given a wild-card entry, thus was not a seeded player, the
Croatian won the title” or simply, “Although he was not a seeded player, the
Croatian won the title”). In (ii), despite the qualification by the temporal clause
“when . . . ,” the irony resides in the unexpected lethal movement of the bullet
due to its very encounter with the bullet-proof windows intended to prevent
the bullet from playing any harmful function, an incongruity that will not be
affected by contextual changes. Similarly, in (iii) the irony arises from human
inconsistency itself, which will not be affected by the change in context. The
same goes for the classical literary examples: no matter in what context, so long
as “the fine speeches and grandiose ideas eventually produce nothing,” it will
give rise to situational irony; and no matter in what context, so long as a father
rejects the daughter who loves him most, it will result in situational irony. Now,
since the term “situation” is often interchangeable with “context,” “situational
irony” is likely to be misunderstood as irony in context. But in effect, the term
Multiple context-determined irony
117
“situation” does not refer to the surrounding context. That is why Muecke (1982:
11) calls it “irony of events,”4 which forms a nice parallel to “verbal irony” –
irony of words.5
In contrast with these conventional types of irony, the ironic effect of what I
call “context-determined irony” depends on the context involved. The following
passage taken from Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is a case in point:
She [Mrs. Mallard] could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that
were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air.
In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which
some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in
the eaves. (Chopin 1996: 52)
Here the words mean what they say and this kind of perception is non-ironic in
normal circumstances. But the description takes on irony since the perception of
the joyful scene occurs in the context of Mrs. Mallard’s bereavement – the news
of her loving husband’s death has come less than an hour earlier. Mrs. Mallard’s
seeing the “delicious” breath of rain and the tops of trees “aquiver with the
new spring life” is incongruous with the context of bereavement involving the
expectation of deep grief, thus giving rise to irony. If the perception occurred,
say, a few weeks or even just a few days after the breaking of the sad news, the
irony would (more or less) disappear since contextual expectations will change
accordingly. Such cases, whose ironic effect depends on the surrounding context
and may disappear with contextual change, is very different from conventional
“situational irony” with the ironic effect residing in the discordance between
an event, state or entity and its own unexpected result, such as an unseeded
player’s succeeding in the tournament, or bullet-proof windows’ aiding rather
than preventing an assassination attempt, or copying from a country one hates –
such “situational irony”, as indicated above, will remain unchanged in different
contexts or, in other words, is unaffected by contextual change.
What I call “context-determined irony”, which relies on the context for its
very existence, has so far eluded critical attention. In D. C. Muecke’s Irony and
the Ironic (1982), for instance, although there is offered a quite comprehensive
coverage of fifteen kinds of irony (including irony as rhetorical enforcement,
mock-modesty irony, ironic mockery, irony by analogy, non-verbal irony [see
note 3], ironic naivety, dramatic irony, unconscious irony, self-betraying irony,
irony of events, cosmic irony, ironic incongruity, double irony, catch 22 irony and
romantic irony), none of them is context-determined. The existing classifications
of irony fall short when it comes to texts like “The Story of an Hour” that display
the kind of irony essentially determined by context.
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Multiple context-determined irony in “The Story of an Hour”
Since the “unearthing” of Chopin as an early feminist writer in the 1960s, “The
Story of an Hour” has been put on a par with The Awakening (Chopin 1979) as
a representative work of early feminist writing (see, for instance, Lanser 1981:
246–264; Toth 1992: 21–24; Seyersted 1969: 58; Ewell 1992: 160–161; Eggins
2004: 37ff.). The narrative is regarded as a positive representation of a woman’s
desire for freedom from patriarchal oppression at the news of her husband’s
death in a railway accident (a desire that is not fulfilled because of the husband’s
unexpected return one hour later which immediately causes the wife’s death
by heart attack). Examining the text carefully, however, we will discover that
“The Story of an Hour” differs to a significant extent from The Awakening in
terms of the author’s gender stance, a difference reflected in the abundant irony
(mainly context-determined) directed at the female protagonist and her relation
to “freedom.” The beginning of the story runs:
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to
break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister
Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. . . . [he] had hastened
to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. 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, with sudden, wild abandonment,in her sister’s arms.
When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would
have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy
armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her
body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her
house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious
breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The
notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless
sparrows were twittering in the eaves.6
Here we have multiple irony directed at Mrs. Mallard’s abnormal reaction. First,
“context-determined” irony arises from the incongruity between the “great care”
other people take in breaking the sad news to Mrs. Mallard and the fact that
such care, which is usually called for in similar situations, turns out to be unnecessary in this specific context. Indeed, in the present context, breaking the
news “as gently as possible” becomes at once an ironic action in itself and a
means to convey irony because it operates to set off the abnormality of Mrs.
Mallard’s response.7 Second, while “the storm soon spent itself ” is a perfectly
normal expression, here “[w]hen the storm of grief had spent itself,” in connection with Mrs. Mallard’s perception immediately afterwards of the joyful
spring scene, takes on context-determined irony since it is discordant with the
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contextual expectation that a wife’s grief at her loving husband’s death will last
at least for a few days, not just for some minutes. Third, Mrs. Mallard’s weeping
“with sudden, wild abandonment” at her husband’s death ironically only leads
to “a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul” without involving any emotional stress (this may be regarded as a case
of conventional “situational irony” – the incongruity between an action and its
unexpected result). The “physical” nature of Mrs. Mallard’s crying is reinforced
by the following words: “She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion
of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and
shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.”
Notice that “a sob” is accorded the role of an agent, which merely works on
Mrs. Mallard’s body and the image of the child’s continuing to sob while asleep
further indicates that it is a matter of physical movement. Fourth, Mrs. Mallard’s
immediately noticing the cheerful scene, as mentioned above, is contextually
ironic. All these point to the strange state of Mrs. Mallard’s lacking proper grief
at the death of her husband. Then there comes the narration of how “it” (the
‘ghost’ or ‘monster’ of freedom) comes to “possess” Mrs. Mallard:
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a
certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away
off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but
rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to
her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too
subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward
her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose
and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching
to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will – as powerless as
her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little
whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the
breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it
went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing
blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or
were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to
dismiss the suggestion as trivial. (p. 53; italics added)
Again, we have multiple irony (though not necessarily context-determined since
the elements involved may be more or less ironic in other circumstances) now
directed at Mrs. Mallard’s relation with “freedom.” First, the desire for freedom
is ironically depicted as an external monster or ghost (“creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air”)
and its approaching scares Mrs. Mallard who is waiting for it “fearfully” (the
comma preceding “fearfully” makes the term more prominent and emphatic).
Second, in direct contrast with other women’s own desire for freedom, here the
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desire for freedom as an external ghost (“it”) is ironically coming to “possess”
Mrs. Mallard against her own will. Third, she is striving to beat “it” (the desire
for freedom) back “with her will” but ends up falling captive to it. In other
contexts, such a description may be aimed at absolving the woman from the
charge of being a “bad wife.” But in the present context, this possibility is ruled
out by the previous depiction of Mrs. Mallard’s unconventional response to the
news of her loving husband’s death, of her crying as merely involving physical
exhaustion and of her immediately perceiving the joyful spring scene, all inviting
the interpretation of this woman as a “bad wife.”
When Mrs. Mallard ceases resisting the invading ghost, it succeeds in “possessing” her and sending out the word “free” from within her body (“When she
abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips”). In
a patriarchal society, a woman’s voice is usually associated with her subjectivity
and a woman’s uttering – out of her own will – the word “free” (especially in
direct speech) is usually a strong indication of the woman’s awakening. But in
the present context, Mrs. Mallard’s uttering the word “free” involves irony since
it is a result of the failure of her will to resist the invading ghost and her falling
captive to “it” – very much a result of the loss of her subjectivity. Similar words
uttered or thought by Mrs. Mallard such as “self-assertion” (p. 53) and “a long
procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (p. 53), which
usually indicate a woman’s subjectivity and awakening, have also become contextually ironic since they are produced when Mrs. Mallard is “possessed” by
the ghost of freedom.
Mrs. Mallard’s involuntary utterance of the word “free” is followed by her
“vacant stare” and “look of terror,” which then go from her eyes only because
of her physical movement after she is possessed by the ghost: “Her pulses beat
fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” Significantly, the statement “She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous
joy that held her” echoes the earlier description “a suspension of intelligent
thought,” which interact to render a “clear and exalted perception” ironic since
it is apparently a result of her being “possessed” by the invading ghost. Although
“if it were or were not” is equivocal, the following depiction of Mrs. Mallard’s
behavior does point to her being held by a monstrous joy at the death of her
loving husband. Moreover, “She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her” echoes the very last sentence of the narrative “When
the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills.” The
latter “joy” is a pun with both superficial and deeper meanings. Superficially, we
have the dramatic irony arising from the clash between the doctors’ diagnosis
(Mrs. Mallard’s joy at seeing her husband causes her fatal heart attack) and the
readers’ knowledge that the diagnosis is wrong since it is rather Mrs. Mallard’s
uttermost disappointment at her husband’s return that leads to her death. But on
a deeper level, there is more profound irony. Prior to the ending, we have such
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expressions as: “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. . . .
There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly
like a goddess of Victory” (p. 54). The terms “triumph” and “victory” are usually commendatory and in a patriarchal society a woman’s winning victory in
her struggle for freedom is admirable. But in the present context, these terms
become ironic since it is essentially a matter of making a triumph out of a bereavement, a matter of the wife’s immediately and monstrously celebrating the
loving husband’s tragic death. For her ironizing purpose, Chopin has created a
somewhat absurd situation in “The Story of an Hour”: a just-bereaved wife’s
congratulating herself, in a heartless way, on her loving husband’s death and
her resultant freedom. The absurdity justifies Chopin’s depicting the desire for
freedom as a monster-like ghost that comes to possess the wife, causing her to
be held by a monstrous joy that leads to her death (since it renders her unable
to bear the unexpected return of her husband) – not as the goddess of Victory
but as the victim of the irony of fate. Underneath the apparent dramatic irony
arising from the clash between the doctors’ diagnosis and the real cause of her
death, we have the deeper ironic plot progression: the ghost of freedom comes
to “possess” Mrs. Mallard and succeeds – then a monstrous joy “holds” her –
soon the joy leads to her death.
A woman seeking freedom in a patriarchal society may have internal conflicts
because of uncertainty about the future and other complicated feelings. Had
Chopin depicted the protagonist’s inner struggle, however fierce and difficult for
her, it would not have involved irony since such internal struggle is perfectly
understandable. One may argue that the author is metaphorizing Mrs. Mallard’s
inner struggle, but the narration goes beyond conventional metaphorization to
the point of offering a quite concrete picture of freedom as a monster-like ghost
that comes to “possess” Mrs. Mallard and succeeds. But I am not suggesting
that Chopin believed in ghosts or monsters, I am only drawing attention to the
fact that Chopin purposefully plays upon the conventions of metaphorization as
well as those of ghost and monster stories to make “it” (the urge for freedom)
appear as a monster-like ghost that comes to possess Mrs. Mallard against her
will.
In a patriarchal society, a woman’s fear and helplessness when faced with
freedom may be a result of long-term oppression. But in depicting such feelings,
it is unlikely that the author would direct irony at “freedom” itself, certainly not
to the point of depicting freedom as an invading monster-like ghost that comes
to “possess” the woman against her will. Further irony arises when we see Mrs.
Mallard’s husband from her own eyes: “She knew that she would weep again
when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never
looked save with love upon her.” (p. 53) This is the only description of the
husband’s character in the narrative, which forms a striking contrast with that of
the husband of Edna in The Awakening, who regards his wife as his own property
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and as a tool to serve him and the children, often reproaching her for failing in
her housekeeping duty. In the present narrative, the husband is only associated
with the traits of kindness, tenderness and love, which is not only contextually
ironic in itself but also renders more ironic the wife’s lacking proper grief at the
husband’s death.
If a woman seeks freedom in a patriarchal society, it is usually freedom from
patriarchal oppression, but “The Story of an Hour” goes in a very different
direction:
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live
for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence
with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon
a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a
crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. (p. 53; italics added)
Compare:
She would not have to live for her husband during those coming years; she would live
for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence
with which men believe they have a right to impose their will upon their wives.
In contrast with The Awakening where Edna seeks freedom from a life in which
she has to live for her possessive and male-chauvinist husband and her children,
in “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard, without being burdened by children,
has a tender and loving husband who kindly “live[s] for her.” This is a reversal
of patriarchal oppression of woman and in this context, the depiction of Mrs.
Mallard’s abnormal response to her husband’s death, especially her joy at her
bereavement, takes on an ironic ring. The irony will be better seen through a
comparison with the comments by Per Seyersted and Susan Lanser:
[Chopin] does not say what Mrs. Mallard would do with her life now that she believed
she could live for herself rather than for her husband. (Seyersted 1969: 111; italics
added)
“The Story of an Hour” challenges the notion that by living for her husband a wife
will also be living for herself. (Lanser 1981: 251, italics added)
The clash between Mrs. Mallard’s thought (her husband would not live for her)
and the critics’ interpretation in the opposite direction (she would not live for her
husband) serves to bring to light how Chopin subtly makes ironic the character’s
thought in this context. In late 19th century America, the wife’s life had to be
organized around the husband regardless of whether the marriage was a good
or a bad one, but Chopin presents the opposite picture. So in contrast with other
women’s seeking freedom from having to live for the family, Mrs. Mallard’s case
goes the other way round. In this context, Mrs. Mallard’s seeing no difference
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between a “kind intention” and a “cruel intention” in “that brief moment” when
she is “possessed” by the ghost of freedom takes on an ironic ring. And in this
context, Mrs. Mallard’s thought in indirect style “It was only yesterday she had
thought with a shudder that life might be long” also becomes somewhat ironic
since she is not burdened with children, has a tender and loving husband (who
lives for her) as well as a caring and loving community surrounding her, which
makes Mrs. Mallard’s thought appear ironically groundless.
4.
Extratextual and intertextual considerations
If we extend the scope of consideration from the text to the extratextual context and intertextual associations, we may understand much better why Chopin
creates abundant irony (much of which is context-determined) in “The Story
of an Hour.” Various biographical sources including the biographies by Daniel
S. Rankin (1932) and Per Seyersted (1969) show that Chopin’s own marriage
was very fulfilling, with “an unusually understanding, respected, and well-loved
husband” (Skaggs 1985: 3). Just a few weeks after producing “The Story of an
Hour,” Chopin wrote in her diary:
If it were possible for my husband and my mother to come back to earth, I feel that I
would unhesitatingly give up every thing that has come into my life since they left it
and join my existence again with theirs. To do that, I would have to forget the past ten
years of my growth – my real growth. (Chopin 1998: 183)
Chopin’s father was killed in a railway accident when she was not yet five and her
mother, who had four children, grieved deeply and remained a widow, devoted
to the memory of her loving husband. When Chopin herself was 31 years old, her
husband Oscar also passed away, leaving her (with six children) in deep sorrow,
and she also cherished the memory of her loving husband all the rest of her life.
After her husband’s death, she became a businesswoman and started her writing
career, which enabled her to gain “real growth.” Seven years after her husband’s
death and five years before creating “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin wrote
“Wiser than a God” (1889) which is about how a girl from a poor family turns
down the marriage proposal of a young man from a rich family and becomes a
famous pianist by means of her talent and effort. This narrative unequivocally
advocates a woman’s getting free of the bondage of marriage and family to attain
self-fulfillment.
But, as quoted above, around the time Chopin wrote “The Story of an Hour,”
she explicitly expressed her longing to join her existence with her husband’s
and that she would not in the least hesitate to give up all her growth for the
reunion. Significantly, one of the two main themes of Chopin’s poetry is the
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wish for a reunion with the lost lover, with “Good Night” as a typical example.
According to a friend of Chopin’s, “one reason why she did not remarry was her
feeling that she could not be as close with anyone as she had been with Oscar”
(Seyersted 1969: 72). Just eight months before Chopin created “The Story of an
Hour,” she wrote “A Lady of Bayou St. John” (1894). The protagonist Madame
Delisle is a beautiful young woman, whose husband is far away from home for
a very long time. In her loneliness, the inexperienced young lady is gradually
attracted to a neighbor who is deeply in love with her and she agrees to elope
with him to Paris. But the night before leaving, a message comes telling her
that her husband is dead, and this stops them from going. Some days later, the
neighbor comes to speak again of his love for the now widowed lady. At his
proposal of marriage, Madame Delisle responds, “Can you not feel – can you
not understand, mon ami, that now such a thing – such a thought, is impossible to
me? Yes, impossible. Can you not see that now my heart, my soul, my thought –
my very life, must belong to another? It could not be different.” (Chopin 1894:
311; original italics, boldface added) Then at his question “Would you have me
believe that you can wed your young existence to the dead?” Her answer is:
My husband has never been so living to me as he is now,” she replied with a faint
smile of commiseration for Sépincourt’s fatuity. “Every object that surrounds me
speaks to me of him. I look yonder across the marais, and I see him coming toward
me, tired and toil-stained from the hunt. I see him again sitting in this chair or in that
one. I hear his familiar voice, his footsteps upon the galleries. We walk once more
together beneath the magnolias; and at night in dreams I feel that he is there, there,
near me. How could it be different! Ah! I have memories, memories to crowd and fill
my life, if I live a hundred years! (Chopin 1894: 311–312; original italics, boldface
added)
Significantly, Chopin presents Madame Delisle’s reaction at her husband’s death
as universal: “Many days after that [the neighbor] spent in the fruitless mental
effort of trying to comprehend that psychological enigma, a woman’s heart” (p.
312). It is “a woman’s heart” not just the protagonist’s heart that is in question.
The husband’s death makes all the difference to the wife, a difference that the
widowed Chopin herself (and Chopin’s widowed mother) surely knew best. The
protagonist’s “smile of commiseration for Sépincourt’s fatuity” at her love for
and devotion to the dead husband might be interpreted as representing Chopin’s
(and her mother’s) smile of commiseration for other people’s fatuity at her (and
her mother’s) missing the dead husband so much, living the rest of her life as a
widow in loving memory of her husband. Indeed, Madame Delisle’s answer to
her admirer seems to echo Chopin’s answer to her admirers: “I have seen other
days of life and know the mystery and lure of another’s love. You cannot touch
my heart.” (Seyersted p. 62) The end of the narrative runs: “Madame still lives
on Bayou St. John. She is rather an old lady now, a very pretty old lady, against
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whose long years of widowhood there has never been a breath of reproach. The
memory of [her husband] still fills and satisfies her days.”
But of course fiction is not biography and authors are hardly bound either
by the thematic treatment of other stories or by their own personal experience.
However, the contrast between “A Lady of Bayou St. John” and “The Story of an
Hour” is not simply a matter of Chopin’s trying out different responses to being
widowed since Chopin shows her approval of Madame Delisle and disapproval
of Mrs. Mallard through various devices. While Madame Delisle’s reaction at
her husband’s death is depicted as representing “a woman’s” reaction that “could
not be different,” Mrs. Mallard’s reaction is depicted as an unconventional case
(“She did not . . . as many women have . . . ”). While Madame Delisle enjoys
a long life, remaining “very pretty,” with the loving memory of her husband
always filling and satisfying her days, Mrs. Mallard dies an untimely death very
much due to the monstrous joy that holds her and makes her unable to bear her
husband’s return. Indeed, under the original more ironic title “The Dream of an
Hour,” stronger irony arises from the contrast between Mrs. Mallard’s “drinking
in a very elixir of life through that open window [from which the monster-like
ghost of freedom entered]” (p. 54) and her death just one hour later (essentially
due to the functioning of the ghost of freedom entering through that window).
The ironic death of Mrs. Mallard forms a marked contrast with the natural and
romantic death of Edna out of her own will in The Awakening: “How strange
and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! How delicious! She felt like
some new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never
known. . . . The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close
embrace.” (pp. 651–652)
To put things further into perspective, I would like to draw attention to another
story by Kate Chopin “Madame Martel’s Christmas Eve” (written in January
1896, nearly two years after “The Story of an Hour”). The protagonist’s husband
has died six years earlier, leaving her with three children, a situation much closer
to Chopin’s own. Compared with Madame Delisle, Madame Martel’s grief at
her husband’s death is even greater and she has been dressed in deep morning
all these years. The story begins with her reading her husband’s old letters on
Christmas Eve and “the naturally sorrowful expression of her face was sharpened
by acute and vivid memories. The tears kept welling up to her eyes . . . ” (p. 473).
Because she misses her husband so much, she mistakes her son (who has come
home to give her a pleasant surprise) for her husband: “And there before the fire,
in her own armchair, sat her husband. How well she knew him!... How familiar
to her was the poise of his head, the sweep of arm and set of his shoulder”
(p. 478). If the narrator of “A Lady of Bayou St. John” makes universal Madame
Delisle’s living in loving memory of her husband, the narrator of this story tries
to make normal Madame Martel’s somewhat excessive grief, which is depicted
as “not rare among Creoles” (p. 474). The narrator goes on to say: “More than
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one woman had secretly resolved, in the event of a like bereavement, to model
her own widowhood upon just such lines. And there were men who felt that
death would lose half its sting if, in dying they might bear away with them the
assurance of being mourned so faithfully, so persistently as Madame Martel
mourned her departed husband” (p. 474). Like “A Lady of Bayou St. John,” this
narrative ends happily with the mother finding great comfort in her son, who,
however, only functions as a surrogate of her husband: “How glad she was to
see him – her big, manly son of nineteen. And how like his father at that age!
The age at which the old ambrotype [of the father] had been taken; the picture
that she had been weeping over” (p. 479). Earlier on, in her loneliness she tried
to seek comfort from her little daughter who was staying with her friends: “her
heart suddenly turned savage and hungry within her for human companionship –
for some expression of human love” but “at the same time she seemed to feel a
reproach from her dear, dead husband that she had looked for consolation and
hoped for comfort aside from his cherished memory. . . How he and he alone had
always understood her! It seemed as if he understood her now; as if he were with
her now in spirit” (pp. 475–477). What a devoted widow – even seeking comfort
from her own daughter makes her worried about “a reproach from her dear, dead
husband”! This expression reminds us of the expression “there has never been a
breath of reproach” at the ending of “A Lady of Bayou St. John” quoted above.
Notice that there the word “reproach” is not post-modified and the source of the
reproach is thus kept vague. In that fictional world, apart from Madame Delisle,
her husband and the courting neighbor, only her servant Manna-Loulou and an
unnamed messenger appear, so Madame Delisle is not worried about any social
reproach when she agrees to betray her husband and elope with the neighbor to
Paris. Later, it is not social pressure but the memory of her husband that makes
her turn down the neighbor’s hand and remain a widow all her life. In fact, as
a widow she can marry again without subjecting herself to any social reproach.
In this light, it is also a matter of being free from any reproach from “her dear,
dead husband.” That is to say, these two “widow” narratives sandwiching “The
Story of an Hour” are both concerned with whether the widow is psychologically
free of the dead husband’s reproach. Both narratives end happily because the
widow is indeed free of such reproach and the “memory of [the husband] still
fills and satisfies [the widow’s] days” no matter whether the husband is dead for
several years (“Madame Martel’s Christmas Eve”) or even tens of years (“A Lady
of Bayou St. John”). Significantly, these two widows, depicted as more or less
representative of women in general (“a woman’s heart,” “it could not be different”
or “not rare among Creoles”), function to set off the unconventional response of
Mrs. Mallard to her husband’s death, a response that strongly invites her “dead”
husband’s reproach.
Multiple context-determined irony
5.
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Conclusion
A woman’s seeking freedom is usually a positive action, but in “The Story of an
Hour” it becomes ironic since it is a result of the woman’s being “possessed”
by the invading monster-like ghost of freedom and a result of the failure of the
woman’s effort “to beat it back with her will.” The irony arises precisely from
the clash between the usually positive nature and the present negative nature
of the behavior, but the conventional positiveness can easily lead to the neglect
of the context-determined negativeness. The case is complicated by the fact
that in Chopin’s literary creation, a woman’s seeking freedom is in general quite
positive – it is only negative in the context of a widow’s wanting to get free of the
“dear, dead husband,” a negativeness that may have to do with Chopin’s personal
experiences as a widow cherishing the memory of her loving husband. In literary
appreciation and criticism, we tend to form a unified picture of the author’s
ideological stance, but an author’s stance towards the same kind of behavior
may vary from work to work due to various reasons. The difference can be
better detected if we carry out an intertexual investigation, paying close attention
to the author’s different ways of representation. Not only may a comparison
between the three “widow” narratives in question be very revealing, but also a
comparison between the natural process of Edna’s awakening from within her
consciousness and the externally-imposed process of Mrs. Mallard’s seeking
freedom can help to show the contrast between the positive and ironic qualities
taken on by the same kind of behavior in different contexts. Interestingly, apart
from human behavior, natural objects may also take on context-determined irony.
For instance, in “The Story of an Hour,” “one of those patches of blue sky” (p.
53) becomes contextually ironic. Like the spring scene, blue sky usually has
positive associations, but in the present context, it ironically takes on negative
associations since it is the place where “it” (the monster-like ghost of freedom)
comes from.
As distinct from verbal or situational irony, the “context-determined irony”
which the present essay investigates has the following three characteristics. First,
it tends to be easily overlooked, since the words (e.g. “free, free, free!”), actions (e.g. showing great care to a bereaved wife), or objects (e.g. blue sky) are
non-ironic or positive in normal circumstances, which constitute conventional
interpretive frames that may block the reader’s view from the ironic meaning
that the words, actions or objects take on in a specific context. Second, this kind
of irony generates more textual tension and semantic density due to the clash or
co-existence of a conventionally positive meaning and a contextually determined
ironic meaning. Third, if the context-determined irony is pervasive as in “The
Story of an Hour,” it is likely to be associated with the author’s unique personal
experiences, which may have led the author to make ironic on a macrostructural
scale what is conventionally positive or non-ironic. Chopin’s experiences as a
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wife bereaved of a loving husband may have played a significant role both in her
affirmation of the devoted widow in “A Lady of Bayou St. John” or “Madame
Martel’s Christmas Eve” and in her ironization of the (psychologically) betraying
widow in “The Story of an Hour.”
However, we need to be very careful with the relation between textual investigation and extratextual and intertextual considerations. The widely-held image
of Chopin as an early feminist writer, her life as an independently-minded woman
and the feminist stance in The Awakening, “Wiser than a God,” and other works,
are to a great extent to be held responsible for critics’ taking “The Story of an
Hour” as a representative work of early feminist writing. But the knowledge of
how Chopin lived in loving memory of her husband all her life and an examination of her other narratives affirming the bereaved wife’s contended life devoted
to the dear, dead husband may help to put things in perspective and enable us to
understand better why Chopin directs context-determined irony, as well as other
kinds of irony, at Mrs. Mallard and her relation to freedom. Context-determined
irony is at once semantically interesting and critically important, since it highlights the issue of how textual elements take on new meanings in specific contexts
and whether the irony is perceived or overlooked may directly bear on the result
of interpretation. Since this kind of irony, which tends to be “deceptive,” has so
far hardly received any attention, it is my hope that more investigations will be
carried out on this neglected area of literary creation.
Peking University
Notes
Correspondence address: [email protected]
* I am grateful to Jonathan Arac, the late Emory Elliott, James Phelan, and the JLS
anonymous readers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this essay.
1. The term “context” has two closely related senses: 1) “the circumstances that form the
setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood
and assessed”; 2) “the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede
and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning” (The new Oxford dictionary of
English, p. 396). So “in context” means “considered together with the surrounding
words or circumstances” (ibid.). This use of “context” is to be distinguished from
some linguists’ use of the term in opposition to “co-text”. In A linguistic theory of
translation, J. C. Catford (1965: 31, fn 2) says, “By context we mean ‘context of
situation’, i.e. those elements of the extratextual situation which are related to the text
as being linguistically relevant: hence contextual. By co-text we mean items in the
text which accompany the item under discussion; hence co-textual”. In this paper, I
use the term “context” as defined by The new Oxford dictionary of English, which
refers to “the surrounding words or circumstances” rather than only to “elements of
the extratextual situation.”
Multiple context-determined irony
129
2. The story first appeared in Vogue in 6 December 1894 under the title “The Dream of
an Hour,” but when it was reprinted in The complete works of Kate Chopin (1969)
edited by Per Seyersted, the title was changed to “The Story of an Hour,” a title by
which the narrative is nowadays widely known and a title that I will therefore use for
the convenience of the discussion.
3. http://en.wikipeida.org/wiki/Irony (accessed 10 February 2009).
4. What Muecke (1982) calls “non-verbal irony,” which he distinguishes from “irony of
events” (typical “situational irony”), also seems to form a kind of situational irony in
the broad sense, e.g. “The kings of Siam, it is said, had a way of punishing nobles
by honoring them with a gift of a sacred white elephant, a gift they were unable to
decline but obliged to maintain at ruinous expense” (Muecke 1982: 9).
5. Colebrook (2004: 15) perceives an essential similarity between verbal irony and dramatic, cosmic or tragic irony: “Dramatic, cosmic and tragic irony are ways of thinking
about the relation between human intent and contrary outcomes. This sense of irony
is related to verbal irony in that both share a notion of a meaning or intent beyond
what we manifestly say or intend. In dramatic and cosmic irony this other meaning is
plot or destiny. In verbal irony the other meaning is either what the speaker intends or
what the hearer understands.”
6. Kate Chopin, “The Dream of an Hour” [“The Story of an Hour”] in Candace Ward
(ed.), A pair of silk stockings and other stories, New York: Dover Publications, 1996,
p. 52. All subsequent references to Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” are to this edition
(pp. 252–254) and are cited parenthetically in the text. This story consists of many
short paragraphs, but to save space, I have not respected the paragraph division.
7. The ironic contrast is carried on to the latter part of the story: “‘Free! Body and soul
free!’ she [Mrs. Mallard] kept whispering. Josephine [her sister] was kneeling before
the closed door with her lips to the key-hole, imploring for admission. ‘Louise, open
the door! I beg; open the door – you will make yourself ill. . . .’ ‘Go away. I’m not
making myself ill.’ No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open
window.” (pp. 53–54) Being worried that Mrs. Mallard is overcome by grief, other
people are trying to comfort her, which becomes at once a contextually-determined
ironic action in itself because of its contextual redundancy and a means to convey
irony since it brings into relief Mrs. Mallard’s being held by a monstrous joy (see
below).
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