Essay on short stories

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Essay on short stories
Irony is a common device in many short stories and it is mostly used to captivate and excite the reader. Many times in order to understand the theme or morals of a story; you will need to recognize the irony. By employing irony, the writer is able to convey a deeper meaning without necessarily having to state it bluntly. Further, irony creates that comical relief. Kate Chopin effectively uses both situational and dramatic irony in "The Story of an Hour" On her part Charlotte uses irony in "The Yellow Wallpaper" consistently to convey some strong points which makes a great impact on the reader, another element of conveyance of irony is where the reader`s knowledge and the writers` belief contrast. In "The Cathedral," Raymond Carver manages to use irony in two different ways to invoke different dramatic effects on the reader, yet still providing an entertaining and interesting plot twist. The ultimate factor of irony as I will enumerate is that it is a powerful tool for storytelling that actually serves to disrupt the flow of the reader`s thought process, it quashes his predictions, it causes excitement , laughter and suspense.
Kate Chopin`s "The Story of an Hour" is very dependent on the ironic twist. The wife after learning of her husband`s death, starts to mull over the single life that is ahead of her, this goes on until she sees her husband again, alive and kicking, and then she abruptly dies of heart failure from that. The irony of this story is that one would expect that the wife would have grieved over her husband`s death, but rather she takes it lightly and is selfishly seen to fantasize, where instead of weeping and perhaps paying the last respects for her supposedly dead husband, she imagines the death as having happened to set her "free." Alas Karma demonstrates itself when the husband enters the husband enters the house in flesh, a...