Kernels and Satellites by Kate Chopin Kate Chopin's story, "The Story of an Hour," is a tongue-in-cheek tale of a wife in the late 1800s .The story is only a few pages long and in doing so Chopin writes a story full of nuclei (events that have an important causal chronological coherence) with very few satellites (events not logically essential to the narrative action). I could find while reading the text; I found every written word essential to the narrative, progression and conclusion of the story Freytag's Pyramid and Functions After examining Freytag's pyramid, I can see that the narrative follows this schematic representation. of the structure of the story. From the inciting moment (Mrs. Mallard's heart problem and the "death" of Mr. Mallard) to the climax (Mrs. Mallard becomes a free and independent person) to the catastrophe (Mrs. Mallard's death) we can follow the drawing by Freytag. The most interesting element of the story, following Freytag's pyramid, is the inversion; Chopin surprises us in Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death. The reversal is Mrs. Mallard's joyful acceptance of her death, her realization of freedom; the narration twists the story into the exact opposite of what the reader expected. Inverting readers' expectations is a much more effective way for Chopin to express his message. The element in the inversion also has the role of a function (an act defined by its meaning for the course of action in which it appears). A death is usually considered a tragedy, but once we begin to better understand Mrs. Mallard's character, we can understand why she responds with the opposite reaction. Another function within the story is the "joy that kills", it makes sense in this story, but in most cases you would see immense joy at Mr Mallard's return, these circumstances would not often see a wife die, what I assume is, a miserable shock. Deeds and Events After looking into the story, I found an interesting insight into Mrs. Mallard in terms of deeds and events; events (a change of state not determined by an agent and manifested in speech in the act of happening) are events outside Mrs. Mallard's control, and acts (a change of state determined by an agent) are events of Mrs. Mallard. Mallard's emotional realizations and his change of view on life and death rather than physical actions: Mr.