Irony In The Tell-Tale Heart And The Lottery

In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson there are many different types expressed throughout. Immediately, there is Dramatic Irony with the title of the story because we associate the Lottery with the winning of a grand prize that will improve the life of that person. Although in the story the winner is stoned to death by the village catching the reader off guard. Over the course of the story we are alluded to believe this occasion is a joyful time with children playing in the village, “square dances, the teen club, {and} the halloween program” (pg.1). Additionally, it is ironic that when Mr. Hutchinson is ask come upstage his wife is eager and encourages her husband to chose which in reality leads to her death.

Edgar Allan Poe creates horror and suspense in his use of irony -including verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony-in his short story “ The Tell-Tale Heart”. Verbal irony is when something that is said means the opposite of what is meant. Poe uses verbal irony when he states, “ I loved the old man.” Situational irony is similar. It is defined as when what happens is different from or even the opposite of what we expected.

Irony is defined as the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite. In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” there are several examples of irony. In fact, the title itself is ironic in that so many unexpected accounts happen in the life of Louise Mallard in the small amount of sixty minutes. Irony usually contains an incongruity. Therefore, the most conspicuous example of situational irony is in when Bently Mallard was believed to be dead and Louise Mallard had come alive with life.

There are three forms of irony in which we are familiar with. There is verbal irony which is when the speaker means the contrast to what they say, and a form that many of us are familiar with could be sarcasm. A novel that we read that has a form of verbal irony would be in Lord of the Flies when Jack says that they need to have rules because they are not savages. This is a form of verbal irony because as the novel progresses Jack no longer follows the rules and acts like a savage who is obsessed with hunting. Another form of irony that we are familiar with is situational irony.

Irony is the most powerful literary device used in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First, a good example of irony in the story is “They were burdened with sashweights sand bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” (P,2 Line, 11-13) This quote is Ironic as it tells how this system was designed to hide beauty, yet beauty was still shown by the amount of restraints on the person. Second, another good example of irony is, “The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Irony plays a major part in the short story "The Lottery". A piece of irony would be the fact that the actual lottery is supposed to be a good thing. In this short story "The Lottery" winning is a bad thing,(which would be situational irony) if they win the lottery they will get stoned to death. The last Paragraph on the fifth page, "It isn't fair she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.

In the “Tale-Tell Heart”, by Edgar Allen Poe syntax, imagery and personification are employed to reveal that the protagonist is a mentally insane man who killed his neighbor to get rid of his “Vulture” eye. The story goes on to unveil that the killer eventually felt remorse for the crime he just committed and confessed to the police. Syntax was utilized to show how when the killer got excited more anxious he became more intense, therefore how he spoke become very short and choppy. It can be shown as early as in the first paragraph. ‘True-- nervous--very,very dreadfully nervous’ It has been proven that when someone is being honest about events that they can tell the story in a calm manner.

Conformity can make people do cruel things without reason. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” highlights a village that continues a senseless tradition of stoning the winner of a lottery. Although all the villagers initially seemed innocuous and welcoming, as soon as the winning ticket was drawn, everybody quickly turned against the winner, Mrs. Hutchinson. Through a stark, cold tone, Jackson brings attention to the dangers of unquestionable loyalty to old traditions. Jackson starts the story with antiquated characters that contribute to the blunt tone.

The Lottery is about this village and how they follow tradition every year and someone from the town has to pay for it. “Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?” –Shirley Jackson's, The Haunting of Hill House is a quote about Jackson. Jackson uses irony, conflict and setting to illustrate the theme of death in her short story “The Lottery”.

When one thinks of a lottery, they would most likely think of a great prize for the winner. Although in some cases, the prize does not turn out so great. In the short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the author uses irony to surprise and make the reading more exciting. If one were to ask what irony was, a correct answer could be that irony is when an event occurs that was unexpected. Shirley Jackson uses situational irony in this story because a plot changing event occurs that is unexpected by everyone.

The Ironic Truth Irony is a complex and important element of literature that can help discover hidden perspectives within characters or hide the truth in plain sight. The story by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado” is a great example the dark ironic twist that happen in the story. The main character, Montresor, is hell-bent on getting his revenge on the man who shamed him, Fortunato. The verbal and dramatic irony that is being used in the story “The Cask of Amontillado” helps hide the true intentions that Montresor has planned for Fortunato. Verbal irony happens when one character says one thing but actually means something completely different.

“The Lottery” is an realism/horror story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about some villagers of a small New England town who follow the tradition of making a lottery every year. When it comes, they like to celebrate it with the correct rules and the correct objects so they can feel more comfortable. Everyone need to take a slip of paper from a small black box, and the paper with a black dot in it means that the family is the winner, then they raffle again; Bill Hutchinson, who was the husband of the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson picked a paper with a black dot in it, that meant that Tessie was the winner of the lottery, then she starts complaining because the drawing was not conducted properly. At the end, the townspeople moved off to a cleared spot outside the town and they begin stoning her to death (Jackson).

This story still remains relevant in comparison to today. Simple towns people who speak to each other on a daily basis and joke around with each other all of the sudden turn around and kill one of their one. This story symbolized the change of heart within people when events go on. With various symbols, Shirley Jackson created the short story, The Lottery, to show society and what it has been and what it could be. One might even say that Jackson wanted to keep it in the mind of a ‘modern’ society that such things could happen again.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of criminal insanity, the first-person narrators confess unsound confessions. They control the narrative, which only allows us to see through their eyes. However, they do describe their own pathological or psychological actions so conscientiously that they exhibit their own insanity. They are usually incapable of stepping back from their narratives to detect their own madness. The narrator 's’ fluency is meticulous and often opulent.

Different types of irony, verbal and dramatic, not only create a sense of humor but also empower the suspense of the story. First of all, because verbal irony provides opposite meaning, it creates a sense of confusion about the truth and makes the plot suspenseful. From the beginning of “The Open Window”, the niece told Mr. Nuttel, a fictional tale about her missing uncles, “Her husband and two young brothers went off for shooting. They never came back. ”(Saki 2) The niece’s fictional tale was opposite from the truth, which ignites the suspense of the story due to reader’s interest of understanding what really happened.