Situational Irony In 'The Ransom Of Red Chief'

In the short story “The Necklace”, Mathilde Loisel’s excessive pride destories her merriment. Guy de Maupassant emphasizes Mathilde’s pridefulness when she does not

Loisel detests her real life, often daydreaming about having a better one. Her husband, a working class man, cues in on this and in a desire to make her happy has hopped through many hoops to get her an invitation to a fancy ball thrown by his boss. She borrows a diamond necklace from her wealthy friend Madame Forestier in order to ‘fit in’ with the upperclass. Over the course of the night, she loses this necklace, and the next ten years are spent by her husband and herself working in “abject poverty” to pay the loans needed in order to replace it. The necklace ends up being a fake, representing the wife’s opportunity to pretend to be the woman she had always dreamt of being, if only for a few hours, and how this vanity ruins what little bit of comfort her life held

The narrator illustrates Mathilde’s quality of selfishness after her husband asks her how much money she would like for a dress by remarking, “She thought over it… going over her allowance... thinking also of the amount she could ask for without bringing immediate refusal” (222). This portrays Mathilde's greed because she knows she is asking for more money than she needs for a suitable dress. Later, readers discover Mathilde is careless. When she first finds out the necklace is missing, she and her husband have a conversation. Monsieur Loisel asks, “Are you sure you had it when leaving the dance…if you had lost it on the street, we'd have heard it drop.

Even with a humble and understanding husband who would go above and beyond to make her happy she is still unhappy. Blessed with a beautiful physical beauty, but not the affluent lifestyle that she yearns for, which lead her to continuously seek for what she cannot posses. Her greed for a lavish lifestyle stop her from enjoying her basic life and to constantly judging what she posses '' She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her'' (Maupassant 7).

She was born into a poor family, married to a low level clerk who works for the Ministry of Education, and constantly spends hours a imagining a life of luxury. Her husband is content with their life and sees nothing wrong it meanwhile, she dreams of fancy dinners clothing. When her husband is invited to a formal party by the Ministry of Education, to his surprise, she is upset. She says she has nothing to wear and feels unworthy. He gives into her cries and spends 400 francs to buy her a dress, but this isn’t enough.

The situational irony in “The Ransom of Red Chief”, by O. Henry, implies a humorous effect on the reader. One example in the story, is the boy enjoys being kidnapped, and ends up torturing Bill. Getting the boy to the cave at first was hard for the criminals, but once the boy got there, he started having fun. He loved camping out and pretending they were Indian chiefs. “‘Red Chief,’ says I to the kid, ‘would you like to go home?’ ‘Aw, what for?’ Says he, ‘I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home again, snake eye, will you?’”(41). The kid also loved to make Bill miserable. He hops on his back like Bill is a horse, and jumps on him when he is sitting down. If the kid could stay at that cave with them for the rest of his life, he easily would.

Madame Loisel learns in “The Necklace” that being greedy is not the way you want to live your life. In the beginning of the story, Madame Loisel is a greedy and spoiled person that thinks she deserves the most because she is beautiful. For example, when Madame Loisel gets upset over not having a nice dress for the ball she starts to cry, “Two great tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth” (18). She demonstrates how greedy she is by already having an invitation to the ball but is still crying over her dress. This develops the theme that being greedy is not the way to live life because she shows greed and starts crying over her dress when other people would be incredibly ecstatic.

Mathilde envied people with happy lives and their possessions like the attributes of Madame Forestier. When Mathilde ran into Madame, she said, “Yes, I’ve been through some pretty hard times since I last saw you and I’ve had plenty of trouble

She proves herself to be unsatisfied when she is allowed to pick out some jewelry from her wealthy friend, but she declines the jewelry and asks “‘ haven’t you something else?’”(Maupassant 225). Mathilde turned down gold and jewels and

However, she is poor so she borrows a necklace from a friend. She did this instead of wearing flowers for a cheap 15 francs. Mathilde lost the necklace and had to pay it off over the next 10 years. She did this because she wanted to fit in and no one else would be wearing cheap flowers. The theme is also shown in this story by the fact the Mathilde wanted to wear jewelry.

Mathilde, however, was only able to wish for such things. She had a loving, caring husband that would do anything for her. In fact, he did do everything. Monsieur Loisel was in charge of working, cooking, and even cleaning. He gave Mathilde all he could afford.

In the second paragraph of the story the author states that she is suffering because she doesn't have the things she wants by saying, “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains.” (Guy de Maupassant 2) “She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved;” (Guy de Maupassant 2) The author included this to let the readers know what kind of “Poverty” Matilde was living in. Mathilde doesn't seem to love her husband as much.

Mathilde Loisel is the most egocentric character I have ever read about. She only cares about herself, and no one else. The author, Guy de Maupassant, develops the character of Mathilde through her actions, dialogue, and personality. Firstly, “He threw over her shoulders the wraps she had bought, the modest wraps of common life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress.”

De Maupassant's “The Necklace” characterizes Mathilde Loisel, the main character, as a beautiful, egotistic woman who desires only wealthy apparel. He emphasizes the negative results of narcissism by blinding Mathilde with that trait

Madame Loisel wanted everyone to believe that she was wealthy, even if it was only for one magical evening. She craved the attention and vanity that the diamond necklace carried within itself, however it was later declared that it was an imitation thus making her feel ashamed. She lives in a fantasy world where she believed she entitled to more wealth and jewels henceforth she believes she has been scammed out of the use of her beauty and charm. These two characters have had nothing good happen to them because of their antagonistic and futile ways; Madame was not responsible about her losing Madame Forestier’s necklace and not simply telling her it was a mistake whilst the vicious sister in Unpopular Gal had a clouded judgement about her priorities thus making egotism and revenge to her sister her ultimate priority. These themes showcase the dreams and minds of these characters, as Gaiman