The Interlopers

Words: 1212
Pages: 5

Comparison between “The Story of an Hour” and “The Interlopers”

The short stories, “The Story of an Hour” and “The Interlopers” are chocked full of important literary concepts. In “The Story of an Hour”, a woman, Louise Mallard, finds out her husband is thought to have died in a train crash. She grieves until she begins to feel joyful. She feels free from the confinement of marriage. Her husband is found to have not died and when she finds out, she dies. In “The Interlopers”, two men, Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym, are in a generation long family rivalry. They both set out on the land they are fighting over, to kill one another. They find each other but a storm knocks a tree over and traps them. As they lie there, they resolve their
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One way is the type of irony in the stories. The stories both use situational ironies. In “The Story of an Hour”, when the wife finds out that her husband is dead, instead of becoming grief stricken, she becomes joyful. Another example of situational irony in “The Story of an Hour” is that when she finds that her husband is alive, she becomes so sad so suddenly that she dies. In the official death report it’s said she died of “the joy that kills” but she actually dies of sadness. “The Interlopers” also uses situational irony. For example, the men set out to kill each other but they end dying together by wolves of all things. Another similarity is that they both use foreshadowing. In “The Story of an Hour”, it mentions that Louise has had a history of heart problems. This alludes to the fact that she’ll die of heart complications, and at the end she dies of heart disease. Another example is that right before she begins feeling joyful, she feels like something is coming towards her. She then starts breathing heavily and feels joyful. This could have been the beginning of her death. “The Interlopers” also uses foreshadowing. Ulrich saw deer running, as if running away from something. “The roebuck which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm wind, were running like driven things tonight, and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours.” (Saki, 2) He expected them to be hidden from the storm but they were running about. This hints that there are wolves running around. At the end, both men get killed by wolves. The last similarity is the use of symbolism. “The Story of an Hour” has a lot of examples of symbolism. One of them is the heart trouble. It symbolizes her unhappiness towards her marriage and lack of freedom. Another example is the open window that she spends a lot of time looking through. It symbolizes all the