Short Story and Dramatic Irony Essay Example

arrived. Loisel was a sensation. She was the prettiest one there, fashionable, gracious smiling” (Maupassant 129). Happy night for Loisel, she goes home and remembers the night for the rest of her night. But not quite, Loisel loses Forrestiers necklace. Throwing her into debt slaving to pay off the replacement necklace, after years of labor Loisel and her husband pay off their debts. But she finds news from her friend that the necklace was pseudo. “Oh my poor Mathilde but mine was only paste why at most it was worth only five hundred francs! (Maupassant 132). Loisel paid for more than she got.

Different from the other two stories, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl has dramatic irony. Mary Maloney a faithful housewife murders her husband with a leg of lamb. When Patrick (the husband) informs Mary that he is leaving her for another women “…she swung the big leg of lamb high into the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head” (Dahl 14). Patrick’s death becomes dramatically ironic when investigators come to check out the cadaver.

Beforehand audience already knows who and how Patrick dies “… probably right under our noses…” (Dahl 12) Mary who was the murderer was literally standing in front of the detectives and she fed them the murder weapon. The lamb was on their plates, under their noses. The presence of situational and dramatic irony not only made the short stories more enter -taining but helped chain together the events that went on in the stories. The ironies antagonized the cliche “happily ever after”. Readers may find the

stories more interesting when what they expect is opposed.