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Situational Irony In 'The Ransom Of Red Chief'

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Emotions Created by Situational Irony

Surprise is an emotion that leads to other feelings. Situational irony uses surprising twists to create other emotions. For example, “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry uses situational irony to instill humor in those who read the short story. Guy de Maupassant also uses situational irony in “The Necklace,” but the feeling he creates is one of justice. Both short stories, when analyzed, show the effect of situational irony on a reader’s emotions. In “The Ransom of Red Chief,” O. Henry utilizes situational irony to evoke humor. In the majority of situations, kidnapped children are miserable, but in this short story, the kidnappers have a terrible time while their captive has the time of his life. …show more content…

Mathilde Loisel thinks she should be incredibly wealthy. However, by the end of the story, she is completely impoverished. Madame Loisel is introduced as “. . . feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury” (1). Her conceited belief that she not only wants riches, but deserves them, is what ultimately leads to her losing everything she had. The reader gets a feeling of satisfaction and justice when her arrogant mentality is brought to a sudden halt. Situational irony also is used when Mathilde and her husband work so hard to return a fake diamond necklace. Mathilde has her night of extravagance with high class officials wearing her friend Madame Forestier’s necklace. When she loses it, her and her husband find another just like it, but since they cannot afford it, they must take out loans from whomever they can. After ten years of paying off their severe debt, Mathilde runs into Madame Forestier again and comes clean about losing the necklace. When Madame Forestier realizes how much her friend had worked to return her necklace, she says “‘But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!’” (10) . This realization adds to the sense of justice the reader gets. She still longs for total riches, even in abject poverty, ignoring all of the events that come after her night of wealth. Mathilde’s self centered belief that she should have riches means that the

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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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However, she is poor so she borrows a necklace from a friend. She did this instead of wearing flowers for a cheap 15 francs. Mathilde lost the necklace and had to pay it off over the next 10 years. She did this because she wanted to fit in and no one else would be wearing cheap flowers. The theme is also shown in this story by the fact the Mathilde wanted to wear jewelry.

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“The ransom of red chief” by O.Henry is a short story where two men kidnap a young boy, and it is filled with situational irony. Situational irony is when something happens that you wouldn't expect to happen. In this story, situational irony occurs through the town’s name, the kidnapping event, and the dad’s reaction to the kidnapping. To begin, situational irony occurs through the location of Summit, Alabama. a summit generally refers to the top peak of a mountain.

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The Necklace Character Essay The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassant, is a fictional account of a married couple in 18th century France. Madame Matilde Loisel and her husband, Monsieur Loisel, live a very common ordinary life. While Monsieur Loisel is satisfied with this life, Matilde longs for something more. As the story progresses, we see Matilde is an undisciplined character because she is selfish, stubborn, and childish.

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Forestier “ went to a wardrobe with a glass door, took out a large jewelry box, brought it back, opened it, and said to her: Choose , my dear.” She found a beautiful necklace, shining and elegant. At the party, the necklace made her successful, she was seen as having money, of course she felt the same way. She became important, she was known, understood, and loved by all attending. Even the Minister himself remarked her.

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(227). Mathilde's dishonest behavior represents her fear of appearing ordinary in front of society, when in fact, taking Madame Forestier’s necklace to appear affluent is an act. Her actions, conversations, and thoughts let readers understand Mathilde's distinct

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In the second paragraph of the story the author states that she is suffering because she doesn't have the things she wants by saying, “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains.” (Guy de Maupassant 2) “She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved;” (Guy de Maupassant 2) The author included this to let the readers know what kind of “Poverty” Matilde was living in. Mathilde doesn't seem to love her husband as much.

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While the short story, "The Necklace," written by Guy de Maupassant, portrays many different universal themes, the one that it is trying to explain the most is to be content with what you have. To elaborate, Mathilde Loisel belonged to the middle class, a respectable balance of wealth, but poverty as well. However, despite having a servant, or being married to a clerk, she always desired a wealthier, more respectable lifestyle. To illustrate, an excerpt in the story says, "Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling..."

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The theme of “The Necklace” is to be happy with what you have, because in pursuing frivolous, unneeded items, one can lose sight of all that they do have. Mathilde deeply cares about how she portrays herself to the public, she may not be wealthy, but she wants to look wealthy. When Mathilde states, “Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can’t go to this ball…” (239).

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Similarly, "The Necklace" is sentimental too. When Mathilde tells Madame Forestier about the necklace, is also the same time that she knows, that the original was "imitation" and "worth at the very most five hundred francs" (Maupassant). She and her husband have a hard time to find the money so they can force for the necklace to replace the original just because they mistakenly think, that it is a diamond one. Clearly, the tone for both stories is

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The story illustrates economic and social inequality in a proletariat woman’s life, Mathilde and how much it costs in her living when she wishes to be perfect on bourgeoisies’ eyes. The Necklace also supports the Marxist idea that people are mere creation of the economic and social circumstances. In the very beginning of the story, Mathilde is already described as a lower class woman to be born “into a family of artisan.” By marrying off to a little clerk, who belongs to a middle class people, makes Mathilde’s life even worse. She seems cannot easily accept her life condition, she always daydreams of becoming a part of the bourgeoisie society.

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However, what Madame Mathilde got as a response was crueler than anything she has expected. The necklace she initially had borrowed for the party turned out to be a fake, and is nothing more than costume jewelry. Like the Aesop fables we have all once read as children, this short story has a moral that is to be considered, as greed ultimately drives a person to their

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After Mathilde paid off the necklace she replaced, her friend explained to her that the necklace “was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs! …” (Maupassant 6). This irony shows how the necklace, a part of the thing that she thought mattered most in life, really didn’t matter. It cost a small amount of money and was a small thing in life.

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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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The protagonist of ‘The Necklace’, Madame Loisel, live a rather steady, ordinary middle-class life in the beginning of the story. However, she views that she is intended for a luxurious life, and, therefore, does not cherish what she has. She takes a step forward to her desires, as she was invited to a ball where all the upper-class woman would be, yet she was unhappy with the fact that she does not even have a stone to put on.

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