Short Story Irony

For example, in The Count of Monte Cristo, the author uses irony to show how devastating vengeance can be and how blind vengeance can make you, especially if taken too far. The Count is a man who is playing the role of God, And part of his vengeance plan is to emotionally hurt Monsieur de Villefort. There is a murderer in his house who is poisoning a

Irony is a very big part of a story, because it can create new elements in a story. Some of these elements may include humor and theme. "The Ransom of Red Chief" is a great example for this.

The relationship between the eagle and the gull to "a pair of ice dancers" represents a battle between life and death. Both the eagle and the gull are trying to survive against each other. When the gull “swerves across / the open water” (5) and the eagle "is always behind it" (8), this shows a synchronization between the two animals as they are trying to battle between who lives and who dies. This also shows the equal desires of both animals as the eagle is trying to catch the gull, however the gull is also trying to escape. As ice dancers, both these animals play the role of partners as the eagle is the "male of the pair" (10) and controlling where and how the gull moves.

Irony is described by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result”. “Ransom of the Red Chief”, as short story written by O. Henry, is full of all types of irony. In this short story a boy, Johnny Dorset, is taken by two kidnappers, Sam and Bill. Ironically, by the end of the story it is the kidnappers who pay ransom to the father. In “Ransom of the Red Chief”, there are many examples of irony which help to enhance the story. Throughout this tale, there are multiple examples of situational, dramatic, and verbal irony.

Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.

In the stories “Story of an Hour”, “Everyday Use”, “The Necklace”, and “The Lottery” it is evident that irony was quite a large part of the short story. There is situational irony, which is when the situation turns out differently than expected. Also, dramatic irony is present, which is when you as a reader knows more than the character. The authors seem to base their whole story around irony to surprise their readers.

Most authors have a goal of creating an effect of surprise for the reader through their stories. Situational irony is a device used to create some sort of emotion in a story, specifically a short story. Throughout the two short stories “The Necklace”, written by Guy de Maupassant, and “The Ransom of Red Chief”, by O. Henry, situational irony is used for that purpose. In “The Necklace”, the author uses this device to create a feeling of desire, however in the story “The Ransom of Red Chief”, the author uses situational irony to create a humorous effect.

What is irony? Does every ironic situation develop a conflict? Can irony really keep a reader at the edge of their seat? According to class discussion, irony is the opposite of what we expect to happen. Additionally, irony is helpful to authors as it gives opportunities for them to keep their stories more intriguing. To demonstrate the idea of irony are three short stories: Sherman Alexie’s “Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimmy Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ At Woodstock,” Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children.” Although the three stories are written by different authors, they all use situational irony to keep the reader intrigued.

Imagine a person wearing a medal for the fastest sprinter in the world has a speedometer attached to him. He is getting ready to sprint in a 100-meter race. Two seconds after the whistle blows and he takes off, his speedometer reads 1 mph. That was unexpected, which is the whole point of irony. Irony is found in many stories. Although readers may think irony used in stories are for temporary effects of the moment it is read, the author has a bigger purpose than just enhancing their story. The authors of “The Sniper”, Liam O'Flaherty, and “The Princess and the Tin Box”, James Thurber, utilize situational irony to present the moral of each story.

Irony is usually termed as a technique or way or presenting a topic with one meaning, not disclosing to the reader that a totally different thing has happened. For instance, one might say it is ironic to save up the money to buy your dream car and it sells minutes before you get there. In the mind of someone like Edgar Allan Poe, irony can take one a far deeper meaning. One piece of irony is the name of the victim, Fortunato. This is an Italian word suggesting good fortune. (Cummings, 2005) However, we know from the beginning of the story that his fortune is not good. The more one looks for it, sometimes the more minute the irony can be. Take the description of Fortunato:

Not many grown up can makes sense of irony, what can high schools students understand? The authors has tried to teach this to teenagers no matter how good he was or the experience he had he was not able to convince

As Oscar Wilde once so eloquently said, “Irony is wasted on the stupid.” Irony is a valuable tool, the hero of countless works of classic literature. It can be used to drive home a point that might otherwise fall flat, to illustrate an argument that might otherwise be resolved in a murmur. Irony deserves to be appreciated, and to squander it on those who cannot should be a capital offense. It is one of the devices used skillfully to portray the theme that things are not always as they appear by the authors Donald Justice and O. Henry in their respective works, Incident in the Rose Garden and Hearts and Hands.

Additionally, we studied another form of high comedy, situational irony. To demonstrate, in "A Day's Work", an excerpt from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Mark Twain reports that while Tom had to whitewash on a beautiful day when he would rather be playing, he ended up conning his friends into doing his work for him while he sat back and enjoyed the so called treasures that they gave to him so they could do his work, including "a dead rat and a string to swing it with"(44) and "a brass door-knob"(44). Despite having a slight understanding of what irony was before this unit, I had never heard of situational irony before. Situational irony leads readers to believe that the story is going in one direction, then suddenly revealing a twist that makes it humorous. If I were to have read this excerpt before learning about situational irony and its aspects, I would have been thoroughly confused. However, now that I have been introduced to this idea, I can understand and enjoy the often comical product of situational irony. Even though Tom had been willing to give up some of his treasures at the beginning, by the end he was rolling in riches without lifting a finger.

“Audrey come on, do you want to go watch a movie or something” Ronny asked.

Between the stories Of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Poe, and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway, the authors are able to control these stories through the use of irony, defined as a “contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and what is reality. This can be a difference between the surface meaning of something that is said and the underlying meaning” (http://www.literarydevices.com/irony/). Within these short stories, each author has been able to bring the reader into the story by giving them the opportunity to endure the thoughts and feelings of individual characters which include the taste for revenge, and the bitter truth of a marriage. The way irony is placed into the stories has given the chance to develop the overall theme for both; revenge.