Vocabulary

aquiver (par. 5); eaves (par. 5); bespoke (par. 5); elusive (par. 9); tumultuously (par. 10); coursing (par. 11); imploring (par. 17); elixir (par. 18); importunities (par. 20); unwittingly (par. 20); goddess of victory (par. 20); grip-sack (par. 21); composedly (par. 21)

Questions

1. With ironic discrepancy, how does the title of this short story seem to promise something small, but the story itself touch on several large issues or matters?

2. What several small details verify that both the grief and the joy that Mrs. Mallard feels are sincere, and that the conversion of one into the other has an emotional and psychological logic, or even a logic inherent in nature itself?

3. What ideas are conveyed by the plural in the references to "doctors" and "they" in the story's conclusion (par. 23)? How is the doctors' final diagnosis, with unwitting irony, both accurate and inaccurate? How is the wording or phrasing of the doctors' diagnosis unwittingly ambiguous or amphibolous (that is, capable of being understood in very different or even opposite ways)?

4. What might be the significance or symbolism of the forename of the protagonist never being used until after her experience in pars. 9-16?

5. With reference to onomastic symbolism, what might the significance or symbolism be of the following names (check their etymologies in a collegiate dictionary and, if available, a dictionary of first names, many of the latter available in paperback for prospective parents): Louise, Josephine, Brentley (from "brent" = "brant," a genus of a type of animal), and Mallard (look up the actual English word mallard)?

6. What is the symbolism conveyed by details of setting in pars. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 18?