The Ransom Of The Red Chief Analysis

Improved Essays
Authors use situational irony in their stories to make the plot surprising and other emotions. The short stories “The Ransom of the Red Chief” and “The Necklace” are great examples of situational irony. In “The Ransom of the Red Chief” O. Henry uses situational irony to make a surprising and humorous plot. Also, in “The Necklace” Guy de Maupassant uses situational irony to make a surprising and sorrowful plot. “The Ransom of the Red Chief” is a humorous and stunning short story that is a good example of situational irony.
In “The Ransom of the Red Chief” O. Henry uses situational irony to make the plot entertaining and surprising. Usually, in a kidnapping situation, the kid is supposed to be scared, but in this story the kid is having

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Irony in a Text Situational Irony means about the same thing as a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. A story that has situational Irony is the Ransom of Red Chief. The situational Irony in the Ransom of Red Chief creates humor and develops a theme by the characters expecting one thing to happen, but another does. The irony in The Ransom of Red Chief creates humor because they tried to kidnap a kid for money but in the end they didn't get any money.…

    • 402 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the short story, The Ransom of a Red Chief by William Sydney Porter, the author tells the story of two men who kidnap a boy and hold him for ransom. Sam and his partner Bill, “...had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and...needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois...,” (The Ransom of a Red Chief, Paragraph 3). This explains that for the scheme that they wanted to accomplish they needed extra money and came to the conclusion that a kidnapping would be an easy way to achieve their goal. This also demonstrates that the two men were quite confident in their abilities to receive the ransom. They also assumed that because, “The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier…

    • 222 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In class we did a trial on ‘’ The Ransom Of Red Chief “. Prosecutors and Defense teams had good enough evidence they needed to support their case but they could've had a little more. Although , the most credible evidence defense had was when they brought bags of hair of the kitties Red Chief had killed. On the other hand , prosecutors had a rope and sack that Sam and Bill tried to kidnap Red Chief in also known as Johnny. While supporting their evidence and giving statements about their case , prosecutors had won.…

    • 204 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One such ironic instance would be when the Jews are traveling to Birkenau, and one woman, Mrs. Schächter, has multiple outbursts about her hallucination of a abhorrent fire. At first, the Jews believed her, but after seeing no fire and later experiencing numerous explosions of the same kind, they assumed that she had gone insane, much like Moishe the Beadle. Rather than deal with her nonsense, the Jews tied up and gagged Mrs. Schächter, and her random frenzies ceased. However, just as the Jews arrived in Birkenau and had almost forgotten her existence, Mrs. Schächter’s anxious cries filled up the train car once again. However, this time, the cries spoke the truth, and in front of the awestruck Jews were “Flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky” (Wiesel 28).…

    • 204 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Ransom of Red Chief” has a theme that is crime doesn't pay. He shows this through the actions and dialogue of Sam and Bill throughout the text. The whole story is about how Sam and Bill kidnap Johnny. But in the beginning of the story Sam drops a big hint of what is going to happen later on in the story. On page 11 paragraph 1“It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator’s point of view in the story is limited. The readers learn in the beginning of the story whose thoughts and feelings are described. In lines 1-3, Chopin states “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, ...news of her husband’s death.” “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break her as gently as possible” (line 1-2). The evidence shows that Josephine and Richards expect Mrs.Mallard to react in a dismal way.…

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1984 Rhetorical Analysis

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    First, an example of verbal irony is in the Party’s own slogan, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 2). This slogan shows how contradictory the Party itself is. An example of dramatic irony is the constant war going on between the three countries: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. The quote “It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting, and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference,” shows that the only reason the countries are fighting is to keep the ruling party, Big Brother, in power; hence the slogan: “War is Peace” (189). Finally, an example of situational irony is Julia’s intimate affairs when she goes on her Junior Anti-Sex League trips.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Ransom of Red Chief is a story that states many important problems is a humorous way. For example, Bill and Sam try to kidnap a boy who has red hair and freckles this is stereotypical because the boy is a very stubborn and tough kid. Bill and Sam call this kid Red Chief and he is very tough and causes Bill and Sam many problems. Red chief comes from a rich family which is why Bill and Sam chose to kidnap him. They wanted to get money from the father of Red Chief and give him Red chief back to make money.…

    • 206 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The interlopers and The story of an hour. B. Thesis Statement (2.) Both stories contain aspects of irony and foreshadowing as well as wonderful use of Suspense. Using this essay you can see for yourself the similarites and diffrences found in the two stories as they use these liteary techniques. II…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even in history you can even find ironic situations. Right before JFK was shot someone asked him “Mr. President you can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you” to which he responded “That’s very obvious”. Subsequently JFK was assassinated. These situation can occur in our life, history, or in literature. Many of the literary situations in R.K Narayan's…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Another example of dramatic irony is when Macbeth is encountering the presence of Banquo’s ghost. Macbeth says to the ghost, “Or be alive and dare me to the desert with thy sword.” (3.3.103-104)…

    • 174 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ransom Of Red Chief Irony

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There was once somebody that was so annoying that somebody paid to take them away. " The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry tells a story of a boy and his kidnappers in Summit, Alabama. Johnny, Bill, and Ebenezer's thoughts, feelings, and actions were so tremendously ironic that it made the story humorous and unique. Johnny Dorset did not behave the way one might have thought throughout the story. Firstly, he did not want to go home.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    There is scenes in the story that have a situational irony. Like in the beginning of the story when the Mary Maloney, the “perfect” wife, was waiting for her husband to come home to make him dinner. She was really nice to him until then she killed him because the husband wanted to leave. Readers expected that the man was going to do the crime instead of the wife.…

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wright uses situational, dramatic and verbal irony to establish suspenseful plots that lead to unanticipated actions by characters. To start with, situational Irony in the story Twins is used to shape the wife’s character, leading her to do abrupt actions. The wife twists the whole plot around and undertakes something the readers…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Situational irony is often used by writers to show incongruences between theory and reality. Douglass sometimes wished that he was illiterate and stupid so that he would not understand the breadth of the injustices against slaves. This is situationally ironic because most people believe that knowledge is a blessing and should be cherished. Unfortunately, Douglass revealed that having knowledge can be a curse when coupled with a lack of power. Douglass drew attention to a complicated facet of his life by using situation irony.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays