Foreshadowing in “The Story of an Hour”

“The Story of an Hour” is about a woman who feels unhappy and trapped within her marriage and becomes free when she hears the news of her death then dies when she realizes he not dead.

The first sentence foreshadows the end story by talking about her heart condition and making the ending sound believable. Bringing up Mrs. Mallard's heart condition sets the story in motion and if it was missing the plot wouldn’t make any sense. Without bringing up Mrs. Mallard's heart condition in the beginning the story wouldn’t click once you read the ending and wouldn’t understand why everything happened the way it did.

Foreshadowing permeates the story by being the heart of the story as well as setting the outcome for the ending of the story. This leads to two distinct perspectives that exist within the story that foreshadows. The foreshadowing you first recognize is of Louise Mallard\'s interesting and unexpected response to the updates on her husband’s passing. While it may foreshadow Mrs. Mallard's feeling toward her husband and their marriage it mainly focuses on the ending when she dies. The next foreshadowing you see is of her appalling death toward the finish of the story. I don’t think Mrs. Mallard would have died the way she did if she was happy in marriage even though we don’t know what truly cause her to die from shock.

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