Donald Justice And O. Henry's Irony Is Wasted On The Stupid

Irony is an essential element that provides the story with sarcasm and a purpose, while it makes the reader think outside the box to truly understand. In Stephen Crane’s “War is Kind,” he expresses the entire document as being irony. Crane states “Do not weep / War is kind”(15-16), misleading the reader in

In the “Story of an Hour” we observe many instances in which irony takes place.

Irony is used in many different types of texts for the purpose of teaching us a lesson. We experience irony in our lives through our own encounters as well as through texts and media. There are three types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. Each type has a way of teaching us an important lesson, although some are more common than others. In the Poem “The Old Man’s Lazy” by Peter Blue Cloud, irony is used throughout the text, allowing us to learn from the characters’ mistakes.

Dramatic irony is also used in Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through Mrs. Mallard's realization that she is free from her husband and with her death. During the time Mrs. Mallard spent alone in her room, she experienced a revelation that she no longer would be bound to her husband. However, no one else in the story knew of this realization. They all believed that she was extremely depressed, and that was the reason she had gone to her room. Josephine even thought that Mrs. Mallard was making herself sick. She

     Irony is a main theme in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” The irony in the story can be separated into three main

"Irony is a device that protects him (the artist) from the pain of his experience so that he may use it objectively in his art(Susquehanna. "New Critical")." In The Glass Menagerie, it is ironic how Tom speaks badly of his father and his leaving home but in the end he leaves home just like his father, the man "in love with long distances (Williams 30)''. The fact that Amanda wants what is best for her children is ironic because she worries so much over it that she doesn't realize what is best for them.

Furthermore, irony shows the contrasting effects of education by revealing how Douglas reacts to this concept of knowledge. One

The author of the story “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Roald Dahl, uses a significant amount of irony throughout the story. Dahl uses irony to make his story more appealing to the reader by keeping them engaged. An example of irony in the story is when Mary is six months pregnant and her husband expresses he is leaving her, so she murders him. The audience would have never seen this coming because the author expresses Mary’s feelings from the beginning of the story by saying, “She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in the door or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whiskey had taken some of it away.” (Dahl 1-2). When Dahl shares Mary’s feelings, the reader concludes that Mary is an innocent, loving wife that truly loves her husband and would do absolutely anything for him. But when Mary murders him after he decides to leave, situational irony appears. This is an example of situational irony because the reader would never expect Mary to murder her husband, but the exact opposite occurs. Dahl also uses situational irony as an example of language. The language makes the story more intriguing and exciting. The situational irony is used in the story to shock the reader and to create the climax of the plot.

We can say that “The Tell-Tale Heart” works on two levels of dramatic irony at the same time. The most obvious level of irony that most readers recognize and that forms the crux of so much literary analysis is that the narrator's obsessive devotion to proving his sanity undermines that devotion to the point which becomes impossible to designate him as anything other than psychotic. The irony in reading this story is based upon the traditional reading that irony is a result

Many authors use irony to make their writings more diverse, as well as to intensify the literary elements in the story. Shirley Jackson, writer of “The Lottery”, does this in her stories in order to leave the reader in suspense and confusion with her use of situational irony. She also uses dramatic irony to give the story a grotesque twist and to cause the reader more confusion about the characters’ morals. Verbal irony is used to intensify characterization as well as give the reader an insight into the true beliefs of those in the village. The use of irony in all three forms throughout the story adds an intensity to the development of many literary elements throughout the story.

Irony is a significant rhetorical technique used in demonstrating a condition which is conflicting or expression whereby the result is the exact opposite of what is anticipated. This device of literature creates absurdity in the story according to its tone. Irony has an element of indirectness hence making the writing interesting to the reader. In the story of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Irony has aided deeper comprehension and understanding of its themes as it provokes the readers making them to critically analyze the state, paralleling and distinguishing the actual condition with assumptions as explained in the paper. Use of irony is imbued in this work as it is a principal feature

When irony is used in a piece of literature, it is used to draw attention and cause a deflection of the readers’ expectations. Author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster, is trying to get readers to understand literature from a different standpoint. His ideas concerning irony can be extracted from The Great Gatsby through relationships and symbols.

Life flipped over “And it was strange, I thought, that sorrow lasts and can make a man look forward to death, but the mood of victory fills a moment and then is over” written by V.S. Naipaul in his collection of short stories. Irony happens every day, though it sometimes isn’t clear it is still there. To give examples of everyday cases of irony are these three stories. Sherman Alexie’s “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ At Woodstock,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” have different plots, settings, and authors, that all share examples of irony.

Kate Chopin uses irony in her stories to show true emotion. It is also used to show feelings as well. Throughout her short story "The Storm," several examples of irony come forth, whether it be verbal, situational, or dramatic, it aids us to stay focused on the story by keeping it interesting.

People watch other individuals experience irony all the time. When something is ironic it means that the thing that was to happen, did not happen the way it was thought to happen. Sometimes irony happens to those who least expect it or irony happens to everyone. There have been songs, television ads, and stories written about irony or that have included ironic events or details. One piece of literature that contains a lot of irony is Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. Crane uses irony in many different ways in the story to tell of four individuals who survive their ship being wrecked and everyone else aboard has drown.