erspective is more exaggerated than Howard is ready to imply.Furthermore, it is even possible to take Chopin’s story and it’s symbolism one step further and assert that Chopin seeks to delineate and restructure the patriarchy by toppling the man’s pedestal position and, in turn, elevating woman to a position even higher than that of the man. For example, Chopin’s use of irony at the end of the story exists on two levels. First, there is the irony that Mrs. Mallard died of shock just when she envisioned and planned out a new, prosperous, independent life. Then, there is also an underlying irony with feminist undertones that can be found when the doctors pronounce her “dead of heart disease-of joy that kills” (440). What’s ironic here is that the “experts,” conveniently men (who else would be a doctor in the nineteenth century?), in their ignorance of the true shades of a woman’s thoughts and desires, end up misdiagnosing her reason of death. Interestingly enough, the other two men left in the story are portrayed in an oafish sort of way; her husband is “amazed” and “did not even know there had been” an accident, and Richard is ineffectual in his efforts to screen Mrs. Mallard from her husband. In essence, the men here are portrayed as ignorant and unproductive, while Mrs. Mallard can be seen as the martyr who dies for feminism, ultimately choosing death over marriage. This ending inevitably elevates the woman’s position to the highest status, while the men are made to look silly and unaware. When Howard asserts that “it is the woman who demands her own direction and chooses her own freedom that interests Chopin most” (1) she is right on target. Howard only fails when she chooses not to expand that vision to include the truly feminist perspectives that differentiate Chopin as a woman far ahead of her time. Works CitedHoward, ...
