Question

Notice that the narration doesn't directly describe the moment of Louise Mallard's death in the story of an hour. Instead, the story skips ahead and describes her husband arriving home to find that his wife has passed away. What effect does this narrative technique have on the story?

Answer 1

In this story, we meet Mrs. Mallard, a woman who finds out that her husband died in a train accident. However, instead of being extremely sad (as we might expect) she feels joy at the idea of being completely free. Nevertheless, towards the end of the story, we learn that her husband is alive, and the shock causes her to die.

When Mrs. Mallard dies, the reader is not told about the event. We only find out when Mr. Mallard learns of the news. There are several effects that are created through this narrative technique. First, the author is able to maintain a feeling of suspense, as the reader does not immediately knows what happened to Mrs. Mallard. Second, this creates an effect of parallelism, as we see both wife and husband receive the news of their spouse passing away.