"The Apparition"- Tone and Irony

"The Apparition"
by John Donne

Irony is present when the speaker says, "my love is spent” yet is still angry at the women and her new lover, even criticizing her new lover and pointing out his inadequacies.  “Thou call'st for more, And in false sleep will from thee shrink” (Donne, 889).  The speaker is saying that the new lover is too tired for her and doesn’t listen to her.  If the speaker is criticizing the new boyfriend and still talking about this woman, he obviously has some sort of feelings for her.  Also, he is kind of rubbing it in the girl's face that she scorned him, a good man, and now is stuck with someone not nearly as good.

Also, the tone of the poem goes through a change.  The speaker starts at as angry and cursing, but then turns more snubbing and reflective.  He was upset and hurt that the women scored him and was cold to him, but later he sort of feels like he gets even because she is with a lesser man and she has to live with her bad choice.  He doesn't want to help her get away from this man or other men, he "had rather thou shouldst painfully repent" (Donne, 890).  Its almost his way of punishing her for scorning him, and it seems to make him (the speaker) feel better as well.

"Popular Mechanics"

"Popular Mechanics"
by Raymond Carver

Solomon and the baby

This whole story made me very sad.  The author makes it clear that a couple is fighting and the man is leaving.  They fight over the baby, and at the end the author gets a little vague.  “In this manner, the issue was decided” (Carver, 335).  Out of context, this phrase makes no sense.  But read in the context of the previous few lines, in which the author describes both the man and woman having a tight hold of the baby’s arms and pulling very hard, the reader infers that that “issue” that was “decided” was the man and the woman physically pulling the baby apart.  This is very similar to the Bible story in I Kings 3:16-28.  The difference in the Bible story though, is that the real mother loved the baby enough to give it up for the sake of its life.  The couple in the short story were selfish and only thought of themselves, which resulted in them physically tearing the baby apart, killing it.  The couple is like the other woman in the Bible story, who was so selfish and spiteful, that she was willing to have the baby cut in half so that the other woman could not have him. Verse 26, talking about the other woman, "But the other said, 'Neither I not you shall have him. Cut him in two!'"  While the man and the woman in "Popular Mechanics" did not come right out and say this, that is essentially what they both felt, leading to neither of them having the baby.

"The Story of an Hour"- Tone

"The Story of an Hour"
by Kate Chopin

This story was actually quite amusing to me.  The change in tone and the dramatic irony at the end of the story give it a very unexpected conclusion.  The story starts out as two people trying to tell this frail woman with heart disease about her husband’s sudden death in a train accident.  The tone here is of anxiety and sadness.  The reader knows the wife will have to find out soon and I, personally, was sad for the wife in addition to being anxious about her health.  The wife reacts with weeping, and the tone is grieving and still sadness.  She wishes to be alone and goes into her room.  Here, the change in feeling and tone is foreshadowed by, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.  What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name” (Chopin, 326).  She succumbs to the approaching feeling, and the reader discovers that it is a feeling of freedom.  The tone drastically changes as the women is occupied with feelings of joy and thoughts of finally being able to live her life for herself and no one else.  The woman has barely a hint of sadness left and now looks forward to her life.  "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long" (Chopin, 327).  The change in tone is drastic and not expected from a woman whose husband just died.

But the twist is that the husband didn’t actually die.  The woman sees him walk through the door and her frail heart gives out.  The last line of the story is where I find the irony-“She died of heart disease- of joy that kills” (chopin, 327). The dramatic irony is that the other characters believed that the overwhelming joy of seeing her husband alive is what killed her, but the way I see it, she felt joy in freedom, and that being taken away was what killed her.

"You're Ugly, Too"- Antihero and Irony

"You're Ugly, Too"
by Lorrie Moore

While Zoe is the focus of the story and may seem at first to be a sympathetic character, I view her as an antihero.  She is not portrayed as smart, funny, or incredibly intelligent, though she is very sarcastic.  I think her eccentricities do help to characterize her as a person, but they do not make her more sympathetic.  "This was what she'd become: a woman alone at the movies with everything in a Baggie" (Moore, 363).  They reveal her as someone who wants to be in control and have things in order.  Being lonely is not fun, nor is it a conscious choice for Zoe, and though being set up could help that, it goes against Zoe’s personality.  She was previously rejected and hurt and not everything was in her control.  Though not initially apparent, she developed hostility not towards herself for her mistakes, but towards men.  This leads to the situational irony at the end of the story.

Situational irony is present because the reader would expect Zoe to be open to a man and a date because she has been lonely, but what really happens is that she becomes aggressive and displays outright hostility: "Zoe came up, slow, from behind and gave him a shove. His arms slipped forward, off the railing, out over the street" (Moore, 370).

Delight in Disorder

"Delight in Disorder"
by Robert Herrick

This poem has a lot of imagery in it.  The detail is describing a girl that a boy is bewitched by.  The boy refers  to the girl's appearance as "a sweet disorder" (Herrick, 979).  Though her clothes aren't perfect, the ribbons are disorganized and her shoestrings are not tied right, he still finds her beautiful and captivating.  Her disorder is more appealing to him than and work of art that is organized or clean.  A point to this poem is to show that if a man is in love, he will love every single little part about the woman.  He will put her above all else, no matter how she looks.  Her appearance is not why he loves her, but he even loves her appearance when it is disorganized.  He loves her for her personality, intelligence, and many other character traits that are not shown in her outward appearance.
He examines the one he loves, noting everything he can see.  Though a reader may perceive this as just a description of a frumpy or disorganized woman, it is the last few lines that show the purpose of the poem: an expression of love.  The reader may not understand the feelings of the narrator, but his feelings are clear.  The narrator personally finds the woman more beautiful than art, and expresses her disorganization in loving terms.

Lonely Hearts- Refrain

"Lonely Hearts"
by Wendy Cope

The refrain "Can someone make my simple wish come true?" (Cope, 973)  is satirizing how specific some lonely hearts columns can be.  These people might be lonely because their expectations are too high.  They think that all they want is love, but they are looking in the wrong place.  Putting an ad in the lonely hearts column wishing that the one person that fits the profile will read it and reply is pretty far-reaching.  Though the ads are short and may seem simple, its hard to find a perfect match.  And if a person only looks for another that matches their criteria, they could miss out on someone that would be great for them.  Love is not based on just a few similar qualities, and love cannot be found from an ad in the  newspaper.  The repetition of the refrain shows how desperate some of these people can be, and is still satirizing the situation.  People need to go out and search for love, they need to meet people in real life and develop it.  The title is "lonely hearts" because these people are looking for their idea of a perfect match in a newspaper instead of going out and trying to change their situation.

Eveline- Point of View

"Eveline"
by James Joyce

The third person limited point of view focuses solely on the thoughts and feelings of the main character, Eveline.  In this way, the reader sees the setting and circumstances through her eyes, and the reader's feelings change with Eveline's.  She talks about her hometown of Dublin in a negative light, listing the reasons she's glad that she's finally leaving.  She wants to escape from the routine, and the reader can sympathize.  She has done the same thing in the same town all her life.  As much as she wants to get out of the repetition, she starts to remember the good times as she reminisces.  Eveline refers to Frank as her savior, but does she really want to be saved from her current life?  As Frank directs her toward the boat, "she prayed to God to direct her, to she her what was her duty" (Joyce, 221).  Even as she is on the verge of escape, the reader gets the feeling that Eveline is having second thoughts.  She starts to panic, continually questioning her next move.  The reader experiences her anxious feelings along with her, and wonders what she will do.  Suddenly, fear strikes her and she "gripped with both hands at the iron railing" (Joyce, 222).  Because of the point of view, the reader was not aware of this decision until it occurred, creating suspense and surprise.  It also gives insight into how sudden Eveline herself made the decision, and how it was non sequitur decision.

How I Met My Husband- Irony

"How I Met My Husband"
by Alice Munro

The author uses irony in connection with the title of this story.  Situational irony is present because the reader, at some point in the story, expects that Chris Watters would be the husband, but that is not what happens.  The title of the work implies that some male character will be Edie's husband, and since Chris Watters is talked about for multiple pages, and Edie has an attraction for him, it would be natural to expect that Chris becomes her husband.  But when the reader learns a little more about Chris, we realize that he isn't really the marrying type.  This irony is used more for suspense, to keep the reader guessing.  Also, it affects how the reader looks at certain characters.  When I expected Chris to be the husband, I looked at him positively, and was glad when he and Edie were able to interact.  It made me view Edie in a slightly more negative light tho, because she was attracted to a much older, and very flaky man.  But on the last page, "it just struck me: No letter was ever going to come" (Munro, 146).  I had assumed much earlier that this would be the case, but when Edie finally said it, it changed the tone of the story.  The story was almost over and Edie was still not married.  At this point, I feel bad for Edie, but I'm also glad she didn't marry Chris, because he was kind of a sleazball. In the last few paragraphs, it is revealed that Edie ends up marrying the mailman.
Dramatic irony comes into play when Edie's husband tells the story of how she waited for him at the mailbox everyday.  In reality, Edie was waiting for a letter from Chris Watters.  The author uses irony to characterize Edie and the men she interacts with, in addition to contribute to the plot in a way that forms confusion and suspense.  In the end, the irony is a way to show that the person one falls in love with may not always be the one that is expected.