Dramatic irony refers to when the reader or audience knows something that one or more characters do not. In this particular story, we know that Louise Mallard is not in her bedroom, grieving and inconsolable, though her sister is unaware and is truly concerned for her health and well-being.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will...
Dramatic irony refers to when the reader or audience knows something that one or more characters do not. In this particular story, we know that Louise Mallard is not in her bedroom, grieving and inconsolable, though her sister is unaware and is truly concerned for her health and well-being.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
Josephine assumes, quite naturally, that Louise is grief-stricken about the loss of her husband because this is the normal reaction to have when one's husband dies (and we know that Brently Mallard was a good husband because Louise thinks about how he "had never looked save with love upon her"). In reality, however, Louise is actually experiencing a "monstrous joy" at the prospect of "no one to live for her during [the] coming years." She is thrilled that she will now be free: she whispers, again and again, "Free! Body and soul free!" Thus, we know more than Josephine and Richards, Brently's friend who came to deliver the news.
In the end, when Brently returns and Louise dies at the sight of him, we also realize that the cause of death decided on by her doctors, "joy that kills," is incorrect. Louise does not die of joy when her husband returns; she likely dies of disappointment: all that freedom she so looked forward to enjoying vanished the moment she realized her husband was still alive.
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