How Does O. Henry Use Situational Irony

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Surprise is something authors use to make their stories more interesting. Authors often times surprise their readers by using something called situational irony. Situational irony is something authors use in their stories to make them interesting to the reader. O. Henry uses situational irony in his short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief” to create humor. Guy de Maupassant also uses situational irony in his story called “The Necklace.” He uses situational irony to make the reader have sympathy for the main character. Both authors, O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant, use situational irony to affect the reader’s emotion. In the story, “The Ransom of Red Chief”, O. Henry uses situational irony to create humor for the reader. For example, in the story when the kidnappers kidnap a boy, Red Chief, they expect him to be scared. Instead, he is having the time of his life. The Narrator says, “Yes, sir, that boy seems to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out had made him forget that he was a captive himself”(40). Red …show more content…

Situational Irony is also used by authors to make their stories more interesting, as well. Situational irony is something authors use to make their stories have more interest to readers. O. Henry uses situational irony in his short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief” to make his story more interesting by inflicting his readers with emotion by adding humor to his story. Guy de Maupassant inflicts his readers with sympathy in his story, “The Necklace by using situational irony. All stories have conflicts, resolutions, and unexpected twists and turns which affects the reader's emotions. The author does this to make their story more intriguing to their readers. In other words, all stories have irony. Without irony, a story would not be a story at all. It’s a lot like life. There are some twist, turns, and unexpected events, but people will laugh as time moves on, as