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John Selmer

English 1H

Mrs. Dufour

30 January 2012

The Secrets of Irony

George Saunders once said, Irony is just honesty with the volume turned up. Many

authors use irony to pull the reader in and blow their mind with something that defies the

readers original thoughts. Authors also use irony to illustrate a message to people about the

valuable and reasonable things that we should ponder about. In the two short stories The

Necklace and Possibility of Evil, irony is used to point out valuable lessons about life and

society.

Guy de Maupassant uses situational irony in his short story The Necklace to help

illustrate his overall message that a person should be proud of who they are and be grateful for

what they have. Madame Loisel was unhappy, feeling like she can only be important and have a

meaningful life if she has expensive things. She danced madly, wildly, drunk with pleasure,

giving no thought to anything in the triumph of her beauty, the pride of her success, in a kind of

happy cloud composed of all the adulation, of all the admiring glances, of all the awakened

longings, of a sense of complete victory that is so sweet to a womans heart (Maupassant 30).

Madame Loisel finally feels good about herself dressed in her fancy things at the ball, only to

ironically find out at the end of the story that the necklace that she was so proud of, the one that

finally made her feel so important that one night, had been fake all along. Not only does

Maupassants use of irony make it clear to the reader that money cannot make a woman, but he

also uses irony to express to the reader that people should appreciate the things they have

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because things can always be worse. Madame Forestier says, Oh my poor Mathilde, but mine

was only paste. (Maupassant 34). Madame Loisel must lose everything in order to pay for the

replacement necklace, ironically causing her to be further down the economic scale than she was

at the beginning of the story. Guy de Maupassants use of situational irony plays a fundamental

role in establishing the storys theme.

Alike to The Necklace, Possibility of Evil uses situational and dramatic irony to send a

message to the reader that people should treat others how people want to be treated and that

individuals should not speak of evil when they are the evil. Miss Strangeworth, in town, treats

everyone as if they were her own minions or slaves by demanding that people complete whatever

objective she desires. Shirley Jackson writes, Looking after her, Miss Strangeworth shook her

head slightly. She did notlook well (175). After trying to get people to think how she thought,

Miss Strangeworth pulled everyone in her town to the point where everyone hated her deeply.

While Miss Strangeworth wrote threatening letters to many people that were in town, she went

outside with one of the letters and dropped it by accident when someone came up and, ironically,

picked up the letter and quickly ran off. Miss Strangeworth woke up the next day to, as well as

being happy, having pity for her roses, her most prized possessions, because they were smashed

and burned. Not only does Shirley Jackson use irony to show that people should treat others how

they want to be treated, but she also uses irony to show that people should keep their hatred to

themselves. Shirley Jackson writes Miss Strangeworths thoughts, After thinking for a minute,

although she had been phrasing the letter in the back of her head all the way home, she wrote on

a pink sheet: DIDNT YOU EVER SEE AN IDIOT CHILD BEFORE? SOME PEOPLE JUST

SHOULDNT HAVE CHILDREN, SHOULD THEY? (177). Miss Strangeworth exclaimed

her hatred and evil to people by sending flames to them which, in the end, makes everyone hate

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her more than before. Shirley Jackson uses a form of irony to show the reader that people should

treat others how they want to be treated and that people should not reveal their hatred.

Both The Necklace and Possibility of Evil send a message to the reader about a life

lesson and how to live in society, telling him/her that they should follow the message. In The

Necklace, the messages sent by Maupassant are that people should appreciate what they have

since things could be worse in life and that people are not made by the money or possessions that

they have. Also, in Possibility of Evil, Shirley Jackson uses irony to send messages to the reader

that people should treat others how they want to be treated and that people shouldnt reveal their

true hatred. Irony is just like George Sunders says it is: Irony is just honesty with the volume

turned up.