What Makes a Good Short Story

Irony is a very big part of a story, because it can create new elements in a story. Some of these elements may include humor and theme. "The Ransom of Red Chief" is a great example for this.

Additionally, in the short story “The Possibility of Evil” the reader will find dramatic irony, situational irony, and verbal irony. Lastly, in the short story “The Skating Party” there is situational irony shown at the end of the story which is foreshadowed throughout the story. The short stories “The Possibility of Evil”, “The Skating Party”, and “The Lottery” all culminate in an ironic ending that is upon a more critical reading, foreshadowed throughout the story. While reading the short story “The Possibility of Evil” the reader comes into contact with dramatic irony. An example of dramatic irony is shown when Miss Strangeworth drops one of the letters that she wrote and she

Yelling “oh great!” after failing a test demonstrates one example. Someone wouldn’t really be happy about that; the irony is being overly positive about a negative occurrence. When the author writes, “you’re a game hunter not a philosopher, who cares how the jaguar feels” (Connell 18), and when Rainsford becomes the “Jaguar” later it is a little ironic. Connell wanted us to think about how a jaguar feels, and why they would be talking about that. When it came to the part in the story where he was being hunted, the readers think back to where the jaguar is mentioned and might think how that was ironic. The author was effective at showing irony. Another example of irony is, “ ‘...you’ll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford,’ he suggested” (Connell 22). He wanted the audience to think about how General Zaroff was being overly nice to a stranger he just met, but then, all of a sudden, changed into a psychopath, a murderer who hunts people for fun. The author made the reader believe Zaroff was generous and kind, and Rainsford probably believed it too. Zaroff acted this way to get Rainsford’s trust, so he could set him free and hunt him

Although irony may be associated with negative events or actions, it can also be a sign of good for characters within stories. According to Dictionary.com, irony in literature is defined as “a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.” The use of irony is found within the novel The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini uses irony to portray and develop the main dynamic character in this story, Amir. Most of the major events Amir is faced with at a younger age seemingly come full circle when he reaches adulthood. Irony plays a role as Amir lives through tragic events that ultimately teach him how to become a better person.

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.

Every young child is told to always tell the truth and that being honest is good. However, some information can create much chaos and is sometimes better unspoken. R.K. Narayan demonstrates the importance this of balance in his story “Like The Sun.” By using dramatic irony, figurative language, and situational irony, Narayan shows that the truth can have consequences.

It is often said that irony is the vital literary element to a story because it gives the story character. Whether it changes the mood, creates suspense, adds foreshadowing, engages the reader or something else, irony can do many things for a story.

The definition of irony is a contrast between two things. One example is verbal irony. It is a contrast between what someone says and what one means, while dramatic irony is a contrast between what the characters know to be true and what the readers know to be true. Many writers use irony in their short stories to prove a dramatic point, or just to develop a story for upcoming use. These short stories by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (140), Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” (183), and Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” (229), spin a tale of symbolic irony. Each tell a tale paradoxical twists with sublime contradiction where one is led to believe one side of an event, yet it is dragged down a twisted trail of mental sarcasms coupled with death. It is a known fact that many tales of irony require many major events to twist the order they are written in to create a viewpoint that stride away from the main topic or where the author wants the reader to end up.

Situational irony creates emotions and different feeling from the readers. The authors O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant both use situational irony to make their short stories more interesting. For example, in the story “The Ransom of Redchief” O. Henry uses situational irony to add humor and excitement to his story. He also uses irony to surprise readers and catch them off guard. Guy de Maupassant used irony to make readers feel sympathetic for the main character Mathilde in “The Necklace”. Many authors such as these two use situational irony to affect readers emotions and surprise them.

Imagine being branded and thinking nothing of it, where the brand is later used to designate you as a target, leading to death. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, there’s a fair amount of irony incorporated. Three examples of irony found in the text are the uses of gold stars to mark Jews and how Chlomo thought nothing of them, how the Jews originally thought of the forced evacuation to Auschwitz, and Madame Schacters speaking of fire. One example of irony, in this case being dramatic irony, is how the Jews were forced to wear yellow stars, branding them as Jewish. Most people, including Chlomo, thought that there was nothing wrong with wearing a star.

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

In his collection of short shorties, O’Brien writes in a style that is very vivid and often times causes the audience to find themselves accepting the events and details of these stories as the truth. O’Brien contrasts the truth to fiction by reminding the audience that within these short stories, the details are not the truth and are there to demonstrate the human emotions that can not be communicated as absolute facts.

Running on Empty: Egocentrism At Its Finest One’s thoughtless actions are always surprised by the consequences. This is illustrated in the plot of the book, Running on Empty by Don Aker. In this novel, a teen by the name of Ethan Palmer lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia with his sister, father and his stepmother. Ethan, the protagonist of the novel is always pestered by his father, Jack Palmer, as Jack teaches him life lessons. Jack Palmer, a lawyer and a politician, making a surplus of money does not spend money on Ethan, as Jack wants him to earn money on his own and be independent, teaching him morals.

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 “Like the Sun” and “The Open Window” there are many uses of irony and/or paradox examples. Some may be, Sekhar from “Like the Sun” decides to tell nothing but the truth for a whole day and it ends up biting him in the butt. His wife is angry with him because he told the truth about how her food tasted, his boss is making him grade a hundred test papers in one night because Sekhar told him that “he played his alapana terribly”, and also at work, his colleague thinks he is a terrible person for saying that he thought a dead man was a “mean and selfish brute”. I think that Narayan uses these three examples because he wants to show how the Truth affects people in all different places: at his work, home, and at a friends home. Saki also shows