Situational Irony In Expensive Combs

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.

In Guy de Maupassant’s story the necklace, Madame Loisel’s is a women in the middle class who’s unsatisfied with her lifestyle and envies the upper class lifestyle. Her personality takes her through a irony filled roller coaster throughout the story. The story shows three different types of irony in the story which are verbal, situational, and dramatic.

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 irony in the gift is that when the wife sold her hair to buy a watch for her husband and he sold the watch to buy her a comb, this was unselfish love for each other. The wife and husband just wanted to please each other, a love story.

Now Jim complains "Four hundred dollars is a good deal more than I can afford," and

Zora Neale Hurston's aim in The Gilded Six-Bits is to counter the lingering; glad; darky generalization by which African Americans was respected in her time. In particular, she refutes the plainly condescending attitude of the white store clerk toward the end of the story who needs to be similar to the African Americans, obviously effortless and continually laughing. Such a recognition is rendered silly and crazy by Hurston's story of the inside turmoil brought on by a demonstration of conjugal disloyalty and the unprecedented efforts of Joe and Missie May to revive their love and recovery their marriage.

Have you lied so you can get your way around the trouble that follows.? Well if you have then, Charles is a story written by Shirley Jackson and it’s about a young kindergartener named Laurie who gets into a lot of mess with his behavior at school and decided to take help from his “Friend” Charles and when Laurie’s mother goes to speak to Charles’s mother she also gets a surprise that she might have never expected and now also will never forget.“ In the story Laurie uses verbal and situational irony while claiming the universal truth of kids going beyond their way to defend themselves.

One small slip of paper can determine your life or death, what would you do to keep your family safe? In the short story ‘The Lottery’ written by Shirley Jackson there is a very important piece of irony that is used in the story to act as suspense to the reader and maybe even a surprise. Irony is when words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. The type of irony that is present in the story is, situational irony, which is something that occurs when what happens is the opposite of what is expected or appropriate. The story is ironic because, are main character in the story, Tessie, is totally okay with the thought of the lottery, but when her family gets chosen she automatically

Situational irony is another element that is present throughout the short story. Della and her husband both buy each other gifts for Christmas at the end of the story. Ironically, Della and her husband bought each other gifts for what they gave up: Della bought her husband a wrist watch strap and Jim sold his watch to buy Della the combs she wanted for her hair. In the short story, Jim is seen grieving about the fact that she had cut her hair off, “I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on,” (O. Henry 121). The ending is situational irony because the reader was expecting that Della would buy her

I just kept wondering what Jim had done for old Miss Watson to threaten to sell him.

telling the owner of its loss. "In a shop in the Palias-Royal, they found a

In the beginning of the short story, it is only centered on Della and Jim is mentioned a few times such as, “Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him.” In contrast, the movie has Jim interact with Della at the beginning and shows him buying a gift for Della. This was done to help the audience understand the connection between Jim and Della since it is being translated on screen and overall, expands on their relationship. The movie was more of a show and not

It was one week from Della's 30th birthday and Jim didn't have enough money to

Love is a defining force for Della and Jim too, overshadowing the poor condition of their finances. Jim and Della do not have much. They would most certainly be considered to be in the lower class, living in a little $8 a week flat in the city and going from a sufficient income of $30 a week to a less than adequate $20 a week with Jim in need of a new overcoat and pair of gloves (Henry). Henry articulates how their love for each other transforms their drab house and surroundings and gray circumstances into a warm and inviting refuge called home. “One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all Della had,” not nearly enough to get a gift worthy of her beloved Jim (Henry). She desires nothing but to please him and considers him worthy of something

Strapped for cash and wanting to give her beloved husband the most luxurious gift for Christmas to express her deep passion for him, we are immediately introduced to the initial situation at hand. With only a dollar and some change to spend on Jim, Della is forced into a situation