How Does Sherman Alexie Use Irony In A Short Story

Reading "Superman and Me" gave me conflicting feelings. Of course, the tale of a young boy striving to succeed in and environment where he is nearly required to fail is thrilling, yet it really makes you think of the environment itself. He was a young Indian child living on a reservation; however, he recognized that he was an intelligent person. Others around him tried to quiet him because Indian children were supposed to be dumb. Sherman Alexie wanted more out of life.

“Invitation to a Murder” Irony Essay “Invitation to a Murder”, a short story written by Josh Pachter, includes several evident examples of situational irony within the text. The contemporary tale takes place in Mrs. Eleanor Abbott’s home in New York City, where she summoned twelve detectives and law enforcers to witness the killing of her husband, Gregory Abbott. In the particular room of Mrs. Abbott’s house, a table sat with a collection of weapons resting upon its surface. Among these weapons was an amber-colored bottle with a skull and crossbones design printed on it. The twelve gentlemen invited to stay as spectators reasonably assumed the symbol indicated there was poison inside the bottle.

Both Sherman Alexie and Francine Prose utilize various rhetorical strategies throughout their essays to captivate their audience. However, Alexie and Prose present and use these rhetorical strategies in different ways. Prose’s essay contains different components of literary devices than Alexie’s essay. For example, one of the rhetorical methods Prose uses is to take on a certain identity to build her credibility and to strengthen her argument. While Alexie also takes on an identity to fortify his argument, it is a completely different identity than Prose.

In the 2004 book, Status Anxiety, by Alain De Botton, the point is argued that the main role of humorists is to convey controversial messages and opinions through humor and irony that otherwise would be impossible to state. This principle of discussing such topics through an articulately written ironic satire is exhibited beautifully in Slaughterhouse Five. The author, Kurt Vonnegut, displays satirical irony juxtaposed with a level of humor to elegantly let the audience know of his viewpoint without seeming tendentious and desiring to shove it down their throat. The role of humorists addressing taboo topics is of a vital importance for societal purposes, being that it allows for a light to be shone where others choose to tread lightly, and

Irony may appear in difference ways within literature. Irony changes our expectations of what might happen. It can create the unexpected twist at the end of a story or anecdote that gets people laughing or crying. Verbal irony is intended to be a humorous type of irony. Situational irony can be either funny or tragic.

The events at Junior’s Grandmother’s wake are ironic because at the end, as the guests lowered her casket into the ground, the thousands of people who gathered at the field to grieve the Grandmother’s life laughed as they did so. This action is considered ironic because funerals are meant to be sad and full of sorrow, yet, it is full of laughter. “Two thousands Indians laughed at the same time. We kept laughing. It was the most glorious noise I'd ever heard” (Alexie 166).

In Richard’s Wright’s short story The Man Who Was Almost a Man, the are many examples of irony throughout the text. It is shown throughout the plot by using the main character, Dave. Irony is when a word or action is used to have an opposite or different meaning. In this text, there are many occurrences of situational irony. Richard Wright uses irony throughout his short story to express the point of manhood and the mental development of his character Dave who is seventeen years old.

Sherman Alexie could be considered one of the most influential Native American writers of all time. In Alexie's " How to Write the Great American Indian Novel", he uses a humor and stereotypes to help express the truth about our society and how Native American culture is viewed by our society's perspective. Although the subject he is writing about is not humorous at all, he is addressing and making aware that there is a problem and there is also a solution. If he uses humor to help present these problems and stereotypes, he can introduce the stereotypes without criticizing them. He uses humor because it is easier for the readers to understand what he is saying and he also uses humor as a self defense mechanism.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses characterization, symbolism, and irony to express the cloud in judgment prejudice causes when examining the morals of others. Scout is able to understand more about the town folk in Maycomb County through studying her teacher’s ironic and corrupted views of life around her. Lee uses Miss Gates, Scout’s teacher, to allow Scout a chance to understand the complexity of the adult world. While teaching the class about the Holocaust, Gates expresses the injustice being done to the Jews. She teaches the children that the town does not “believe in persecuting anybody” (Lee 329) because of the U.S. democratic government.

Federigo’s Falcon’s Irony Authors use irony to make their audience stop and think about what has just been said, excite the reader, build suspense, or to even emphasize the idea. There are three types of irony: Verbal, Situational, and Dramatic. In Federigo’s Falcon by Giovanni Boccaccio, all three types of irony are used in different ways throughout the story. For instance, a clear example of Situational Irony is at the end of short story.

Situational Irony is a very important element in literature and can be found in many famous literary works including Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains. Situational Irony adds drama to the story and engages the reader. There are three specific examples of situational irony in There Will Come Soft Rains: The house continues to perform its daily tasks even though no one lives there, the house is destroyed by a tree branch that starts a fire yet it survived a nuclear fallout, and Mrs. McClellan’s favorite poem describes the situation in the story. The first example of situational irony can be seen in the fact that the house continues to do its everyday tasks even though all of the humans that used to live there are dead.

In A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, author Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses imagery, simile, symbolism and metaphor to describe the mistreatment of an ‘angel’ that fell from the sky, revealing the theme that assumptions can lead to unwarranted misfortune for the one being judged. This theme is first presented when characters Pelayo and Elisenda discover a man with wings. “He was dressed like a ragpicker… his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had” (Marquez, 975). Through visual imagery and simile, describing the winged man as a great grandfather and a ragpicker, he is connoted as grotesque, malformed, and of no use. These assumptions piled negative connotations on the old man without

There are fundamental questions that are posed in everyone’s life. The most asked, as well as the most daunting one is perhaps what happens when we die, and what is heaven like? Billy Collins in his poem “Question About Angels”, attempts to pose and answer such questions. As the poem is a statement on the outlook of how religion in interpreted, and how angels are perceived through the use of repetition, symbolism, and irony. Billy Collins attempts to show the reader a sense of mystery and unfamiliarity that leads to chaos when he is trying to describe how angels are perceived.

O. Henry (1867 – 1910), an American writer, who is famous mainly for his short stories. These stories usually focus on the image of the poor who spends their daily living to earn. Perhaps O. Henry knows so well about this kind of life that his stories always convey the heartfelt sympathy with the characters. Besides his sympathy, he expresses his humor through every story so that his stories always contain unexpected climaxes, which lead to an amazing ending. Some of his celebrated stories are “the Ransom of Red Chief”, “The Cop and the Anthem”, “A retrieved Reformation”, “The Duplicity of Hargraves”, “The Caballero’s Way”, and especially “The Gift of the Magi”.

I got a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I don’t think I’ve read any book about angels, ever. That doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in books about angels though. I do. So when the author offered me to review this book, I was excited to read it.