Use Of Situational Irony In The Ransom Of Red Chief

Situational irony occurs when a story’s plot takes a 180 degree turn than what both the intended readers or audiences and the characters predict. Situational irony is also sometimes called as “Irony of Fate”.

In the very beginning of the story, Jonathan Harker is traveling to Dracula’s castle in place of his boss who couldn’t go. His intentions are good so he can help his boss and make some money off of the land he is planning to sell, however his intentions get turned around when Dracula traps him inside the castle and he fears for his life. These are examples of situational irony.

In “Ransom of Red Chief” O.Henry uses situational irony to create humor in his short story. It is very fun to see the things that happen throughout the story because the reader does not expect those things to happen. As a result of O.Henry using situational irony, it develops the theme crime doesn’t pay. In order for the reader to understand the theme they need to understand situational irony and how it affects the story.

Situational irony occurs when an outcome is different from what is expected. One occurrence of this is when Mr. Shiftlet says, “People don’t care how they live.” This shows that Mr. Shiftlet does not care how he lives and that he is only interested in getting the Crater’s family possessions. Another instance happens when Mr. Shiftlet says that the only trouble in the world is that no one cares. He does not care for the Lucynell, the mother, and Lucynell, the daughter. Mr. Shiftlet only wants to collect their car and money, and then get away. This is why he left Lucynell at the dinner, because he does not care about her. Mr. Shiftlet also comments, “There’s some men that some things mean more to them than money.” Mr. Shiftlet only marries Lucynell, the daughter, for the car, and then leaves her at the dinner. He only cares about the money and

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.

As Bill Nye once said: “Humor is everything in that there’s irony in just about anything a human does.” Irony affects everybody. It affects how we think, do, and even act. Situational irony is a distort on a story; the opposite of what was expected for the reader, typically occurs in short stories. For instance, Guy de Maupassant uses situational irony to capture his readers into feeling sympathy for his main character in “The Necklace”. Also in “The Ransom of Red Chief” O.Henry uses situational irony to formulate an emotion in his readers, in this story O.Henry formulates the feeling of humor. By reading these two stories it is clear that authors utilize situational irony to deploy emotions in there

For instance, when the readers think of a National Guard, one would imagine him or her as keeping the peace in a violent situation. However, in this case the National Guard ends up getting beat up by a civilian. This is portrayed when Alexie writes, “In his hands my father holds a rifle above his head, captured in that moment just before he proceeded to beat the shit out of the National Guard private lying prone on the ground” (Alexie 25). This displays situational irony because the reader expects the National Guard to protect everyone from violence, but he is the one who ends up getting hurt. Another instance where situational irony is displayed in this short story is when the mother and father are discussing heroes. One would expect a person’s hero to be intelligent, successful, and a person of many talents. Contrary to this belief, Victor’s hero is a rock star who had many personal problems and died a terrible death. This is shown when the story says, “’Only the good die young,’ my father

In the book “ The Book Thief “ irony is used a great deal of the time. Irony is an event that is different than what you would expect to happen. The book thief is about an orphan who lives with a family while the Holocaust is happening, the story is told by Death.

In the story “Invitation to Murder” by Josh Pachter, situational irony is presented in a number of examples. Situational irony is when what is expected in the plot, does not occur. Mrs. Eleanor Abbott invited twelve of the nation’s most accomplished detectives to witness a murder. The detectives were invited to her home in New York City. When the men entered the room, a table mounted in the center of the room had multiple weapons lying on it. The weapons included an amber bottle with a skull and crossbones, a knife, a gun, and a wire. The men waited until the party commenced.

One example from Ransom Of Red Chief is it states on page 1 “There was a town down there as flat as a pancake it was called summit of course”. This shows that Bill was using verbal irony. One example of situational irony irony from Ransom Of Red Chief is when Red Chief gets kidnapped and then he doesn’t wanna go home. This shows an example of situational irony. An example of situational irony from the movie is there's a police officer in the house and no one's paying attention to him. This shows an example of situational irony from the movie. An example of dramatic irony in the story is Bill thinks he got rid of the kid but he's standing right behind him. It states on page 71 “Bill Wobbled out into the little clearing. Behind him was the kid he came stepping softly like a scout with a broad grin on his face. This shows the dramatic irony in the story. Another example of dramatic irony from the movie is when kevin's family left him behind and went on vacation and they didn't know they left him behind. This shows the dramatic irony in the

Situational irony, also known as irony of situation is when a set of circumstances turn out to be the opposite of what considered or expected to be appropriate. In “The Parsley Garden,” Al’s final action of shocking his mother by rejecting a job offer and money he earned from working at a store is an example of situational irony. First, one would expect that Al would accept the job and money to support his mother financially and mentally. The Condraj family lives in a state of poverty where the single mother works extremely hard to make ends meet. The mother “…had to be up at five to go to work at Inderrieden’s, packing figs.

In “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O.Henry, there is a significant amount of situational irony to produce humor. For instance the kidnapping victim does not want to go home. When Sam asks the kid if he wants to go home, the kid replies “‘ I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t send me back home again,snake-eye, will you?”’(41) Usually when a

Situational irony is when when the opposite of what you expect to happen, happens. During the

In the story “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry, the author utilizes situational irony to not only surprise the reader but also inspire different emotions too. In “The Ransom of Red Chief” two men capture a young boy hoping to ransom him off for a good price, but a problem that both men never thought off was that the boy enjoys being kidnapped. This is the first example of situational irony, having the boy love being kidnapped and not wanting to go home. The narrator, Sam, says about the boy “Yes sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget he was a captive himself,” (40). The boy thinks of his kidnapping as an adventure, and doesn’t mind being in the cave with the men, which

Situational irony was used in that the opposite happens then what one is lead to expect because officers usually do not take sides during an altercation between two people without evidence; if that was the case, Orgon would have gone to jail for trespassing, as he had signed all of his belongings over to Tartuffe. Molière used the old Roman comedy tack on happy ending to symbolize that malevolence will never prevail.