Examples Of Irony In The Little Match Girl

I. INTRODUCTION
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen tells about a little girl that comes from a poor family, she has to help her family to survive by selling match in New Year’s eve, struggling alone by herself in a very cold night, and she does not wear any shoes. Knowing that she cannot go home because there is nobody buying her match and she is freezing, she decided to stopped by in a corner formed by two houses, and draw her match one by one. She sees some beautiful things in every match that she draw, until the last match that she draw, comes her grandmother which is already dead and she is the only one who loved the little girl, and the girl asked her grandmother to take her with her grandmother. So her grandmother takes her to God, and in the next day, the little girl was found dead by the people, stiff and coldbut at least she is finally happy now.

The incongruity between two things that’s clearly different, like its antonym. Irony often occurs when something that is expected different with the reality. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, irony is the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning.
“For it suggests that some malicious fate (or other spirit in the universe) is deliberately frustrating human efforts.To notice an irony gives pleasure. It may move us to laughter, make the reader feel wonder, or arouse the reader’s sympathy” (Kennedy & Gioia, 2005).
In my opinion, this short story, The Little Match Girl, experienced irony of fate or cosmic irony. The Little Match Girl makes the reader feel sympathy about her, something that happened and destined to her. All of it leads to deep sadness, as she is still young but she has to bear it.

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