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Situational Irony In O. Henry's The Ransom Of Red Chief

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O. Henry has a very unique writing style. Throughout his novels, he uses examples of situational irony and plot twists to make the reader more interested. The Ransom of Red Chief, After 20 Years, and The Gift of the Magi are only a few of the 14+ books in which he puts his creative thinking and writing skills to work and includes plot twists and situational irony. The Ransom of Red Chief is a story about 2 men who kidnap a little boy and ask for ransom money from the family in order to get him back. In the end, the family gets the boy back and asks the men for ransom money to take the boy off their hands. Situational irony is seen when the kidnappers end up paying the family for taking the little boy. The author states on page 1, "Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred …show more content…

After a very crazy night, the police officer calls a friend to arrest the fugitive, because he couldn't bring himself to do it himself. The irony in this story happens when they meet up 20 years later and end up on 2 different sides of the bars. As claimed by the author in the text on page 61, "I saw the face of the man wanted by Chicago cops. I didn’t want to arrest you myself. So I went and got another cop and sent him to do the job." Lastly, in The Gift of the Magi, a couple who try to buy each other Christmas gifts end up selling their most prized possession to pay for the other's gift. Only in this case, the gifts they buy are now considered useless because they sold what the gift was for. The plot twist in this story occurs when for example, the girl sells her hair to buy her husband a new band for his watch, but the husband sells his watch to buy his wife a hair

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224 Words | 1 Pages

What is irony? The dictionary definition of irony is a difference in what is expected and what happens. The situational irony in the Ransom of Red Chief creates humor and develops a theme by Red Chief's father being paid to take his own son back. The irony in the story is entertaining by developing an unexpected ending. In the ending, the kidnappers, Sam and Bill, pay the father to take his son back.

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342 Words | 2 Pages

In The Ransom of Red Chief movie and short story, there are a few similarities. One of them being how Red Chief tried to scalp Bill. Red Chief thought that they were still playing as Indians. Another similarity is how Bill went crazy. The reason for this being that Red Chief drove him crazy.

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192 Words | 1 Pages

In “The Ransom of the Red Chief” by O. Henry there is a bunch of ironies. One example of Irony that can be found in this short story is “There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake (pancake), and called Summit, of course.” (Henry 5-6). To know if this an example of irony we must analyze the sentence. There was a town down there (implying that the town is under where they are standing), as flat as a pancake flannel-cake, and called Summit (peak of a mountain), of course.

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172 Words | 1 Pages

Situational irony is shown in multiple areas of this book. First, when Jack’s dad is pointing out criminals: “Dad’s keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was impressive. But it wasn’t perfect. ‘He never had me pegged for being one of them” (7). The situational irony is in the fact that Gantos was, in fact, a criminal, yet his dad failed to see that reality when he was pegging criminals on the streets.

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744 Words | 3 Pages

One of the first instances of situational irony is when the “would be” kidnappers first carry little “Red Chief” off to their lair. The reader expects the kidnappers to be serious and smarter than they are in the story. They try to be serious but they just can’t control themselves. However, the kidnappers do not behave as the reader would expect, instead they act kind of scared of “Red Chief”.

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568 Words | 3 Pages

Situational irony occurs when the final outcome of a story is contradictory to what is expected. Authors often use situational irony to target the emotions of their reader. O. Henry the author of “The Ransom of Red Chief” and Guy de Maupassant the author of “The Necklace” use situational irony to affect different emotions of their readers. O. Henry uses it to target the reader’s humorous side. Whereas Guy de Maupassant uses it to target the reader’s sympathetic side.

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1215 Words | 5 Pages

In the movie, Red Chief commits all of the mischief he does in the book, as well as more, but the movie manages to show Red Chief having a good side. It was very enjoyable how there’s a scene in the movie when Red Chief has a mature talk with Sam and expresses how everyone detests him. This creates mixed thoughts about Red Chief because it entertains the possibility Red Chief might not be as bad as he is illustrated. An example of this is when Red Chief rides Bill like a horse. “‘I was rode,’ says Bill, ‘the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch.’

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543 Words | 3 Pages

Little does Mrs. Hopewell know, he is actually a thief who has been rambling around stealing artifacts from the country folk. The underlying theme about how Mrs. Hopewell views the bible salesman,

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897 Words | 4 Pages

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in the town of Weil der Stadt, Württemberg, in the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality. His parents were Heinrich and Katharina Kepler, who were Lutherans. At the time of his birth, Johannes was an only child. He would be followed by two brothers, a sister, and three more children who didn’t live to adulthood. His surviving siblings were named Heinrich, Christoph, and Margarete.

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426 Words | 2 Pages

Another occurrence of irony emphasizing the flaw within the court’s process of prosecution is when he states Mary Warren’s punishment and the girl’s punishment. He states that if Mary Warren “has been conquered by Satan...her neck will break for it but if she speaks true, I bid you now drop your guile and confess your pretense, for a quick confession will go easier on you”( Miller 95). A situational irony is an event that surprises the audience. This would be considered ironic since both crimes of Mary Warren and the girls are on the same level of severity and seriousness. However, Mary Warren is the only one being killed for her confession of her crimes, while the others live.

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663 Words | 3 Pages

Many different authors have different styles of writing that they use. Styles can vary to an evil, dark story, to a very humorous and funny story. O.Henry's style is very humorous and he is a master of picking when to use irony inside of his short stories. O.Henry's use of irony to entertain the reader, has humorous statements throughout the story, and his use of descriptive language and imagery to better understand the plot line is excellent in The Ransom of Red Chief.

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686 Words | 3 Pages

One clear example of irony occurs when Laurie’s mother attends the PTA Meeting. For example “you must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.” Then the teacher states “Charles?” “We don't have any Charles in this kindergarten.” (Page 476)

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574 Words | 3 Pages

Alexus, a young middle school student can make connections to the story “The Gift Of The Magi” because like Jim and Della she has to make sacrifices for her loved ones. In the story Jim and Della don’t have enough money to buy each other christmas gifts. So Della has to cut her hair and sell it and Jim has to sell his watch to make money for gifts. The author of the story develops the theme when being in a relationship sacrifices is often needed.

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939 Words | 4 Pages

The fact that the house continues to do its daily tasks without knowing the residents have perished is the overshadowing example of situational irony in the story. The fact that the house survived a nuclear fallout yet ends up being destroyed by a fire caused by a tree branch falling is a perfect example of situational irony in the story. Finally, the poem used by Ray Bradbury is ironic because it was one of Mrs. McClellan’s favorite poems and it happens to describe the present situation in the story. All of these examples of situational irony engage the reader in a very unique

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516 Words | 3 Pages

Henry uses situational irony to convey his theme in the story “The Ransom of Red Chief”. Two thieves change from wanting to hold a kidnapped boy for ransom to instead giving the boy back to his father, along with $250.00. They quickly realize that the boy, nicknamed “Red Chief”, is not who they expect him to be, and their whole kidnapping scheme consequently does not go as planned. Eventually, Bill Driscoll, one of the thieves, begs to let the boy go back home even though they have to pay the boy’s father $250.00. Bill says, “You ain’t going to let this chance go, are you?”

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