The author used
a wide variety of lexical devices:
Epithets: veiled hints, sad message,
paralyzed inability, delicious breath, countless sparrows, dull stare, bitter
moment, new spring life were used to portray the state of the protagonist
or of the nature.
Metaphors: a sob came up
into her throat and shook her, elixir of life, the storm of grief had spent
itself, a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into
her soul, a little whispered word escaped. We see, that Kate Chopin made
Louis’ health and moral problems like an animate object that ruled her and
didn’t allow her to feel better.
Hyperbole: countless sparrows.
Rhetoric questions: What was it?
Epiphora: She breathed a quick prayer that
life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that
life might be long.
Irony: she had died of heart disease -
of the joy that kills. This “oxymoronical” irony performs a very important
function – it contributes to the understanding of the readers, that Louis
wasn’t a happy woman, her love and devotion to husband was just an illusion,
she wanted to break free. It wasn’t an ordinary case, when a woman can’t
believe in husband’s death, and still waits for him home, and it’s a real
unexpected, great surprise that he comes back unhurt, but not for Louis. She
was ashamed, surprised of her unusual, unexpected feelings about her husband
hadn’t had died.
Nominative sentences: Free! Body and
soul free! These nominative sentences contribute to the understanding of
the reader the moral state of Louis, she felt happy and free.
Inversion: There stood, facing the open
window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank. These cases of
inversion emphasize the most important part of the sentence.
Antithesis: if it were or
were not; A kind intention or a cruel intention. And yet she had loved him -
sometimes. Often she had not. Makes us arrive at a definite conclusion that all her love towards her
husband was just an illusion.
