In the story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, irony plays a big part in establishing the characters and it emphasizes how different General Zaroff and Rainsford are. It also shows how the context may change throughout the story in the sense that the hunters become the hunted and the enemies thrive with each other. It changes Rainsford perception on the animals he has hunted for sport when he quickly becomes the hunted. Overall, the author, Richard Connell uses irony very well to show emphasize different points in the story. One clear example of how the author uses irony in his work is through the conversation between sailor, Whitney and game hunter, Rainford.
At this moment Hulga comes to the realization that Manley Pointer is not all that he seems. Hulga is angry and confused “Her face turned almost purple. “You’re a Christian!” she hissed. ”(9) Hulga is having trouble comprehending how someone she considers to be far beneath her is able to so easily dupe her.
From a bible-selling prosthesis thief. To a corpse in full confederate wear waiting in line at a Coca-Cola machine. Flannery O’Connor’s fiction is often shocking but memorable. In that her violent comedy creates a humor from the fusion of opposite realities. She creates characters that seem to be simple, but makes them have an ironic twist.
Hulga used to be insecure about her wooden leg, she cherishes it as a defining quality, and also her education. Hulga takes care of her leg by herself and she never lets anyone see it. However, her attitude just happened to be her downfall in the story, Hulga let Manley take off her leg, and she became vulnerable in her mind. She had no clue what to do without it, she panics and Manley ends up stealing it and leaving her.
Joy’s mother, Mrs. Hopewell, states that it is hard to think of her daughter as an adult, and that Joy’s prosthetic leg has kept her from experiencing “any normal good times” that people her age have experienced (O’Connor 3). Despite the fact that Joy has no experience with people outside of her home, Joy has contempt and spite around her mother and acquaintances alike. In fact, when Joy changed her name to Hulga, she considered it “her highest creative act” and found a self-serving pleasure when the name brought dissatisfaction to her mother (O’Connor 3). When Joy expresses her disgust with her hometown, she also shares that she would much rather be “lecturing to people who knew what she was talking about” (O’Connor 4). Therefore, Joy suggests that the people and ideas that have surrounded her are inferior to her intelligence, and this
Her attitude towards both men and women show the theme. O’Connor uses her thought that there is an absence of a male in the family to which the women become vulnerable to males because of the lack of a male in the family. Hulga, the woman who is naive and vulnerable, allows herself to be manipulated and robbed by a man. Needless to say, Hulga lives with all women, and O’Connor does not mention anything about Hulga’s father. The man being the sneaky bad guy usesing the innocent, naive girl.
She has not felt this way since she was twelve, as her brain “seemed to have stopped thinking all together” and her face “changed with different expressions back and forth” (CS 298). She has been depraved of emotion, having lived so devoutly in the void of Nihilism for so long. However, near the end of the ritual, Manly ironically and abruptly crushes Hulga after discovering her plan to break his heart by stealing away her leg, glasses, and breaking her heart, forcing her to face the emptiness of her emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life (Oliver
She thinks that she is no longer like them others around her because she is much smarter than them due to her education. Towards the end of the story Hulga meets a man named Manley. Manley shows her that’s he’s truly smarter than her and helps Hulga see the real reality. This teaches Hulga that even though you might be smarter than the people around you, you do not need to go blind of the fact that it’s the little things in life that matter. Also she learns that she is capable of learning new things every day and to not downgrade the people around
Helga originally recognises her powerlessness to the educational structure of Nexus and leaves in pursuit of knowledge and a place she belongs, exhibiting power and possibilities. The narrator is similarly repressed by her setting and embraces the opportunity to unveil knowledge in her husband’s absence. However, the relationship between power and knowledge is not always linear; you do not need to possess power to gain knowledge. In Quicksand, Helga has the most knowledge when she is at her least powerful. Her tragedy is that she realises knowledge too late for her to have the agency to change anything.
Age doesn’t always resemble or account for the level of maturity within ourselves. Instead, our choices are limited and reflected from our experiences, substantiating the transformations that originate from the outcomes. For Hulga in, Good Country People, tolerating with her heart condition, in result impacts her personality and consolidates her character and mind to be defensive. This unhealthy responsibility and the implication of her weak heart, serves to show that there is strength absent and necessary for her to deal with betrayal, masked as love. This motif O’Connor utilizes, not only indicates her physical weakness, but further reveals the magnitude of her flaw, as she struggles emotionally and mentally with deception.
Hulga appreciates Mrs. Freeman because she helps her distinguish a more realistic view life and the world, rather than following the same old good Christian
In all, it becomes clear that the abnormality that Mrs. Hopewell sees in Hulga is a result of Hulga’s lack of womanly features, while also being unalike to social norms. Alternatively, Mrs. Hopewell is the opposite, as she is quite feminine, since she dresses in a “red kimono” for breakfast, while also being aware of the right social convention such as never being rude to nice, good country people (O’Connor 5, 10). Thus, it is clear that she regards Hulga as completely different from herself. Yet, Hulga sees herself as being just as different from her
" Hulga intrigues the reader's attention by her flaws and imperfections as a character in this short story. Hulga's behavior and attitude have put her and others in situations because of her range of traits, such as being judgmental, disrespectful, and highly educated. Throughout the story, Hulga is extremely judgmental. She has become bitter and betrayed by the world, and at the sight of her surrounding, she becomes irritated. The story states “Sometimes she went for walks, but she didn't like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men.
You’re just like them all – say one thing and do another…” (9). If Hulga is an atheist, why would she care about this? Why is she so hurt all of a sudden? Simply put, she wanted to be the one to do the hurting. She wanted to manipulate what she thought was an inferior mind and further prove her belief that she had the most superior mind of all.
Irony is often used in literature to illustrate certain situations to the audience. In some pieces of literature that might be pointing out an unjust system, in others that might be to add a comedic effect, but whatever situation the author wants to illustrate, irony is very beneficial. Through small and witty, one-liners, or a bigger dramatic irony situation contrasting two very different situations, irony can be very beneficial for the reader to understand the story. Both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins have a corrupt dystopian society. Through the use of irony, the author can portray the corruptness to the audience.