Situational Irony In 'The Ransom Of Red Chief'

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When you are surprised it is normally a good thing, but in a lot of stories situational irony makes it a humorous thing. Situational irony is a device used to create surprise, and humour in stories. O. Henry uses situational irony for humour in “The Ransom of Red Chief” with the main characters Sam and Bill. Also Guy de Maupassant uses situational irony for surprise in “The Necklace” with the main character Mathilde. Both of the stories had lots of examples of situational irony using humor and surprise. Guy de Maupassant and O.Henry makes the examples of situational irony very clear.
O.Henry uses situational irony to create an effect of humour in “ The Ransom of Red Chief.” For instance the little boy who is kidnapped, loves being kidnapped. The …show more content…
This is humorous because instead of being happy with her middle class life , she wants more, but loses everything. At the beginning of the story the author says “She suffered endlessly, feeling born for delicacy and luxury”(1), and near the end of the story it says “The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat ; they took a garret under the roof(7).” The more that Mathilde wants to be someone she is not, the more she strays away from being the person she wants to be. Another example of situational irony how all the real jewels were not good enough for Mathilde, but the fake jewel was good enough for her. Mathilde has spent her whole life trying to be someone she is not, and when she gets the chance to have real authentic jewels she chooses the fake one. Mathilde only learns its fake after ten years of misery when Madame Forestier says “Oh my poor Mathilde!But mine was an imitation.”(8) So Mathilde the person who always tries to act fake chooses the fake necklace, which matches her personality. In “The Necklace” Guy
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