Figures of Speech

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 456.

Symbolism

Characters

Observance of the Unities

Setting

The action takes place in a single hour in an American home in the last decade of the nineteenth Century.

The story observes the classical unities of time, place, and action. These unities dictate that the events in a short story should take place (1) in a single day and (2) in a single location as part of (3) a single story line with no subplots. French classical writers, interpreting guidelines established by Aristotle for stage dramas, formulated the unities. Over the centuries, many writers began to ignore them, but many playwrights and authors of short stories continued to use them.

Mrs. Louise Mallard: Young, attractive woman who mourns the reported death of her husband but exults in the freedom she will enjoy in the years to come.
Brently Mallard: Mrs. Mallard's husband.
Josephine: Mrs. Mallard's sister.
Richards: Friend of Brently Mallard.
Doctors: Physicians who arrive too late to save Mrs. Mallard.

Examples of symbols in the story are the following:

Springtime (Paragraph 5): The new, exciting life that Mrs. Mallard thinks is awaiting her.
Patches of Blue Sky (Paragraph 6): Emergence of her new life.

Examples of figures of speech are the following:
Revealed in half-concealing (Paragraph 2): Paradox
Storm of grief (Paragraph 3): Metaphor
Physical exhaustion that haunted her body (Paragraph 4): Metaphor/Personification
Breath of rain (Paragraph 5): Metaphor
Song which someone was singing (Paragraph 5): Alliteration
Clouds that had met (Paragraph 6): Metaphor/Personification
The sounds, the scents (Paragraph 9): Alliteration
Thing that was approaching to possess her (Paragraph 10): Metaphor/Personification
Monstrous joy (Paragraph 12): Oxymoron
She carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory (Paragraph 20): Simile
Joy that kills (Paragraph 23): Paradox. The phrase is also ironic, since the doctors mistakenly believe that Mrs. Mallard was happy to see her husband alive.