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Dramatic Irony In 'Just Lather That's All'

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The short story “Just Lather, that’s all” by: Hernando Tellez has a very dramatic/suspenseful plot. The way Hernando Tellez captures the dramatic/suspenseful feeling is by using dramatic and verbal irony in the short story. There are many time he uses these forms of irony in the short story. Dramatic Irony is when there is a scene in the short story or novel (or whatever you are reading or watching) that has a character or characters that don’t understand or know what is going on around them. An example of this in “Just Lather that’s all” is when Captain Torrez walks into the barber shop; the barber was a rebel and the Captain is trying to kill all the rebels. The reason this is Dramatic Irony is that we know that the barber recognizes the Captain however, the Captain does not acknowledge that the barber is a rebel. We think he does not know that the barber is a rebel. The reason that that is Dramatic Irony is that it is somewhat connected the end of the short story. When the Captain leaves the shop he says “They told me that you’d kill me. I came to find out. But killing isn’t easy. You can take my word for it.” This shows that the Captain knew that the barber was a rebel and wanted to see if he …show more content…

An example of Verbal Irony in “Just Lather that’s all” is when the Captain says “That was a fine show, eh?” and then the barber says “Very good.” This is Verbal Irony because the Captain is asking if the show was good; the firing squad that killed a lot of rebels. Then the barber is saying it was good however, he himself is a rebel, so he is saying it was fun to watch his people, his friends being shot to death. This is verbal irony by the barber saying it was fun to watch even though it wasn’t fun for him to watch. The effect this has on the reader is at first you/they might not understand what is happening but then you are just think to yourself “oh I understand. He really doesn’t enjoy it he just doesn’t want the Captain to kill

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