brian kipkiruiIn her story " the story of an hour " , Kate Chopin successfully employs sarcasm to prove the point that " true freedom can only be obtained when one sheds his/her confinements. " In the story, she uses strong kinship ties as personal confinements that must be done away with if true freedom is to be achieved. According to the story, freedom is only attained the moment one is able to break away from these strong kinship ties without any regrets whatsoever. Chopin uses irony when she explains how her protagonist Mrs. Mallard, whom she depicts to suffer from a weak heart, is able to handle news of the death of her husband well, and is killed by the realization that he was indeed alive. One can ironically conclude from the story that Mrs. Mallard is only able to handle the news of her husband's demise since at the time of her learning, she was still close to him and couldn't let go. As a matter of fact, she handle the news pretty well as 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. " This suggests that the source of her strength may have been her " strong confinement " to her husband. From the story, several aspects can be identified that played a role towards the achievement of her freedom. Some of them were seemingly common occurrences but were wildly reminiscent of new beginnings. A good example is from the line, " She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. " Also, we are reminded of the proverbial silver lining for every cloud from the line, " There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. " It is only after a deep reflection upon these seemingly common happenings that Mrs. Mallard is able to free herself from her dead husband's stranglehold. It is then that she entertains a more positive and optimistic outlook towards life. She now intends to live the remainder of her life to the fullest after she reckons that she has only herself to consider. This is when Mrs. Mallard can be said to have attained true freedom. From then on, there would be no one to dictate to her how she had to conduct herself. Here, Chopin implies that although love may be considered by most as good, it is in fact a confinement on its own. To drive her point home, the story's author kills her protagonist Mrs. Mallard with the supposed good news of her husband's survival. The fact that the protagonist could not only survive but come out stronger from the sad news of her husband's demise is the greatest irony of the story. This is notwithstanding her weak heart condition. Her death, here is to be taken as the fulfilment of true freedom, one that is free from the responsibilities and the concerns of love and married life. Although ironic, this is in fact true to some extent since in death, Mrs. Mallard was finally free from any and all of life's concerns.