Question

Use the text of “The Story of an Hour” to answer the question.

How does the story’s end contribute to the overall structure of the story?

The story’s surprising ending gives the story a three-part structure that explores the distinction between Mrs. Mallard’s public persona and private emotions.

Mrs. Mallard’s surprising death at the end of the story brings the two-part structure to a tragic close.

Mrs. Mallard’s unexplained death at the end of the story concludes the story’s three-part structure by creating more questions than answers.

The tragic death of Mrs. Mallard because of her heart trouble brings the two-part structure of the story full circle.

Answer 1

Option 1 is best.

Explanation with textual support:
- The story unfolds in three clear parts: the initial, public reaction to the news of Brently Mallard’s death (“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment”), the private interior revelation of freedom (“free, free, free!”; she breathes “a monstrous joy”), and the closing reversal when Brently appears and Mrs. Mallard dies.
- The final line — the doctors’ claim that she died “of heart disease—of the joy that kills” — reasserts the public, surface interpretation and ironically contradicts the reader’s knowledge of her private exhilaration. That contrast between outward persona and inner emotion is what the ending cements, making the three-part structure serve the story’s central theme.