Short Story Situational Irony Essay

Situational irony occurs when there is a situation which appears to have an assumed conclusion, but then something ironic happens and the end result is different than what was expected. Harrison, the unique son of George and Hazel, is a tall, strong man who is attempting to overthrow the government. He manages to break out of jail and takes control of the television station, declaring himself the Emperor. Just as it appears that he is going to succeed in his takeover, the Handicapper General came into the studio. ”She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.” This is not the expected outcome and creates irony in this situation.

Situational irony is when the opposite of what is expected to happen happens. This type of irony can be found in many different works of literature, take The Interlopers and The Machine That Won the War for example. The Interlopers and The Machine that Won the War differ in many ways, like in characters and setting, but use situational irony in a similar way.

Trapped in the upstairs of an old mansion with barred windows and disturbing yellow colored wallpaper, the main character is ordered by her husband, a physician, to stay in bed and isolate her mind from any outside wandering thoughts. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes the digression of the narrator’s mental state as she suffers from a form of depression. As the story progresses, the hatred she gains for the wallpaper amplifies and her thoughts begin to alter her perception of the room around her. The wallpaper serves as a symbol that mimics the narrator’s trapped and suffering mental state while she slips away from sanity reinforcing the argument that something as simple as wallpaper can completely

Situational irony refers to when a character’s actions have the opposite effect of what was intended. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, uses situational irony in "The Yellow Wallpaper" to make the plot of her story interesting. In her short story the narrator is moved to a temporary home due to her health and is not allowed to do anything, which makes her go insane. She becomes so obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her room, she convinces herself a woman is trapped inside the thin paper and she must be set free. Situational irony is irony involving a situation in which an action has a certain effect that is opposite from what was intended, so, the outcome is

This leads to her idea of selling her most prized possession: her hair, to get Jim his present. Meanwhile, Jim decides to sell his most prized possession which was a pocket-watch that was passed down from his grandfather to his father and then to him. He sells that watch and buys Della a set of beautiful tortoise shell combs for her hair. Thus leading to the use of situational irony in which they both receive gifts for something they gave up in order to give the other a gift.

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is told she needs to rest constantly to overcome her sickness, so she is forced to stay in the old nursery where there is yellow-orange wallpaper with a busy, obnoxious pattern that she hates. She tries to study the wallpaper to distinguish the pattern, and as time goes on she believes she sees a woman moving around in the background of the pattern. Also, during this period of time the character’s condition is worsening, because her husband is causing her mind to weaken by not allowing her to exert herself at all; he says she is not to think about her condition, walk through the garden or visit family. All she can do is sleep and trace the wallpaper, and being cooped up in the room causes her to begin hallucinating. The narrator sees the woman trying to escape from the wallpaper throughout the night, and she ultimately completely breaks down and believes that she is the woman.

Throughout the story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator of the story displays signs of depression. The narrator of the story was brought to an old colonial mansion that has been untenanted for a long while by her husband John, who believed that she had a nervous condition. On the walls in the nursery of the house, there was yellow wallpaper that, according to the narrator, was horrific. After staying in the house a while, the narrator began to become obsessed with the wallpaper, and she would use some bizarre language to describe the sight. When the narrator describes the wallpaper you can tell that there is a something deeper that’s wrong other than just a nervous condition: “There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, which is also her doctor, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness. Everyday she keeps looking at the torn yellow wallpaper. While there, she is forbidden to write in her journal, as it indulges her imagination, which is not in accordance with her husband's wishes. Despite this, the narrator makes entries in the journal whenever she has the opportunity. Through these entries we learn of her obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom. She is enthralled with it and studies the paper for hours. She thinks she sees a woman trapped behind the pattern in the paper. The story reaches its climax when her husband must force his way into the bedroom, only to find that his wife has pulled the paper off the wall and is crawling around the perimeter of the room.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” tells of the journey into insanity (brought on by postpartum depression?) of a physician’s wife. Persuaded by her husband that there is nothing wrong with her, only temporary nervous depression, a diagnosis that is confirmed by her brother( Gilman, 647). What is telling is that she suspects perhaps her husband John is the reason she does not get well faster. She and/or we are led to believe that they have rented a colonial mansion for the summer for her to get well. She is however isolated in a home three miles from the village and on an island. (Gilman, 648). She wants to stay in the downstairs room with roses and pretty things, but her husband insists on the room at the top of the house ostensibly because it has room for two beds. But the room’s description of barred windows and walls with rings and things in them (Gilman, 648) could leads the reader one to conclude that this is his own private asylum, and not “a nursery first and then a playroom and gymnasium” (Gilman, 648) as the woman believes. It is this room, and more precisely the wallpaper in the room

Her husband keeps wants her to put down her pen and paper, relax and stay in one room as she is stressed. The doctor and her husband agree that this is the best cure for her depression or mental anguish. All though not really on board with this plan, as she wants to live, she goes along with her doctor and husband’s blessing, holding her feelings inside “But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired” (Gilman, par. 26). In her husband holding her to this room, which has torn yellow wallpaper, she fades more and more into the faded torn walls “I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper. It dwells in my mind so” (Gilman, 94). She wants to get to any other room for the longest time, then subsides into blending into the wallpaper and what it possesses in its designs. Eventually, her husband went checking on her, found her creeping around on the floor, and was so astonished that she actually digressed that he

The yellow wallpaper was an assortment of journal entries written by a woman who has been confined into a room by her physician husband who is certain that she is suffering from temporary nervous breakdown, when she is suffering from postpartum depression. She is prescribed the “rest cure”, usually the only remedy used for women who had “slight hysteric tendencies” and depression. The label “slight hysteric tendencies” points out that this is not seen as an important issue but rather taken very lightly. It is also very ironic as her condition is not very light, as towards the end she completely loses it and goes insane. She starts to see crying women trapped in the wallpaper and spend most of her time thinking about it. She somehow sees herself

In this story the narrator and husband, John, rent a beautiful estate out in the country. The narrator suffers from depression and her husband, who is a doctor, orders her to rest as much as possible and stay dormant. She soon becomes restless and focuses all her time on the hideous yellow wallpaper; however, she would much rather be writing but all the people disagree. The narrator becomes infatuated with the wallpaper. She started tracing the patterns and believed that

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.

The yellow wallpaper is a story about John and his wife who he keeps locked up due to her "nervous condition" of anxiety. John diagnoses her as sick and has his own remedy to cure her. His remedy s to keep her inside and deterring her from almost all activities. She is not allowed to write, make decisions on her own, or interact with the outside world. John claims that her condition is improving but she knows that it is not. She eats almost nothing all day and when it is suppertime she eats a normal meal. John sees this and proclaims her appetite is improving. Later in the story, the woman creates something of an imaginary friend trapped behind the horrible looking yellow wallpaper in

According to Literarydevices.net, irony is, "a situation that may end up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipate." Irony is a common literary archetype in which authors indicate a meaning that is different from the literal meaning or outcome. In literature, authors use two different types of irony. Dramatic irony, a situation in which the audience is more aware of the situation than the character, adds meaning to events by making the audience wonder how characters will react.. Situational irony is used when the situation turns out different than expected. Situational irony adds to the story by shocking the audience, and provoking deeper emotions. Both types of irony assist the audience in feeling more connection