BREAKING NEWS! A fire station has been engulfed by monstrous flames and even the police station has been robbed. These are examples of irony. Nobody expects the prevention of fire to be burnt, or the catcher of thieves to be robbed. Irony is used in literature to charm certain occurrences with a bit of humor. The short story The Ransom Red Chief written by O. Henry is about two kidnappers trying to earn two thousand dollars off of a kidnapping, but end up paying the boy’s parents in order to return him. This is just one of the many ironic moments within the story. Irony is presented in the short story because the boy is not scared of the kidnapping and the boy’s village does not want him back.
To start, the boy being kidnapped is only a young ten-year-old child. Most children at this age are still slightly scared of movies of children being kidnapped. Imagine ten-year-old children being confronted by real kidnappers, they would be scared into shivers. When the boy is being kidnapped, he does not even realize that he is. Even after he was brought to a cave, he still did not realize the truth. The child ended treating his kidnappers as his best friends. Not only does the boy not realize he is being kidnapped, but he also is not scared at all and wants to play with his “enemies”. It is not an everyday occasion to see a child playing with their kidnappers. These ways of action are just the less ironic commitments of the boy. The child states how he does not like going to school and staying with his family. This information when added to the fact that he is “playing” with criminals can help one assume that the boy is acting as if he willingly wants to be kidnapped. It is truly ironic that the boy is not even a bit scared of being kidnapped, and even does not want to go back home.
When Sam, the narrator of the story who is also one of the kidnappers, goes back to the boy’s small village, he is confronted by a confusing sight. To clear some understanding, in many movies and small towns in real life, everyone knows one another, and they together are a family. Losing a member of the village breaks the powerful bonds of family between hundreds of people. This is catastrophic, as the small village attempts to avenge their lost soul. In the story, Sam says he expected angry people armed with scythes and pitchforks ready to fight. Instead of seeing the expected sight, the villagers end up not caring about the appearance of one who broke a hundred bonds. The boy has done some trouble then and now which might explain why, but simply neglecting a member of one’s community is unacceptable and ironic. Voluntary exclusion is something extremely ironic especially when the setting is a prospering village.
The art of irony is one of the key features of this short story and it adds on an admirable sense of humor for the reader to enjoy. The little boy is merely ten years old, and he is not at all frightened of his kidnappers and even wants to become friends with them. Additionally, even after the boy is kidnapped, his village does not seem to care for their loss. Bill Nye, the science guy, once said, “Humor is everywhere in that there’s irony in just about anything a human does.” Although these ironic moments in the short story seem special, one can find irony in almost everything just by taking a closer look.