Non-ironic turning ironic contextually: Multiple context-determined irony in “The Story of an Hour”

Abstract

Abstract This article defines and discusses a type of irony that has eluded existing classifications, namely, “context-determined irony.” Although existing types of irony – whether called “verbal” or “situational” or modified by some other terms – are in varying degrees related to context, none of them is really context-determined. Compared with verbal or situational irony, “context-determined irony” generates more textual tension and semantic density due to the co-existence of the conventionally positive meaning and the contextually determined ironic meaning. It is revealed that such irony implicitly permeates Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” (A lady of Bayou St. John, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894), a textual analysis that is backed up by intertextual and extratextual considerations.