Questions and tasks:

1. What was the real cause of Josephine’s death?

2. What can be said about Josephine’s husband? Did he give her any reasons to feel unhappy in her married life?

3. Comment on the specific structural and stylistic techniques that Kate Chopin employs to heighten the drama of the hour. Be sure to include the following points:

   1. How does the paragraph structure mirror the intense hour Louise spends contemplating her new independence?

   2. Prove that in such a short story Chopin succeeds in making every sentence important. 

   3. How are important points highlighted?

4. Collate the examples of represented speech and comment on them.

5. Dwell on the phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices employed in the story.

6. Point out the similes in the text. Explain their function.

7. Speak about the effect of epithets in the text.

8. Discuss the motif of crying in the text.

9. What images, in your opinion, acquire a symbolic meaning in the story?

10. Provide a complete analysis of the story. Make use of the snippets of interpretation you made in exercises 1-9.

References:

1. Archer J. The Collected Short Stories. NY : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

2. Atwood M. The Blind Assassin. Rosettabooks LLC, 2003.

3. Fitzgerald F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. NY : Scribner, 2004.

4. Chesterton G. K. The Complete Father Brown Short Stories. London : Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2006.

5. Chopin K. The Story of an Hour. Режим доступа: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/ (дата обращения: 20.10.12).

27