Irony is a difference or a contradiction between appearance and reality or between what is expected and what actually happens.
• In situational irony, something happens in the story that directly contradicts the expectations of a character or the reader. For example, you would expect that if Jim works hard at his job for a year, he will get a raise. If he gets a pay cut instead, the situation is ironic.
• A surprise ending often helps to create situational irony through a turn of events that takes the reader by surprise. To make a surprise ending believable, the author builds clues into the story that makes the ending logical.
A. DIRECTIONS: For each of the following excerpts from “The Gift of the Magi,” write
I in the space provided if the excerpt is ironic. Write N if the excerpt is not ironic. In the space following each item, briefly explain why the excerpt is or is not ironic. Type all responses in RED.
_____ 1. “Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.”
_____ 2. “Where she stopped the sign read: ‘Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.’ One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the ‘Sofronie.’”
_____ 3. “Grand as the watch was he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.”
_____ 4. “They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.”
