In the story Camp Harmony, by Monica Sone, the author uses irony in her story in many ways. First off, the title of the story is called Camp Harmony, and the camp itself is not a very happy or beautiful place. We see this when the author writes,¨It must have rained hard the night before in Puyallup, for we sank ankle deep in gray, glutinous mud¨ and ¨They're the only beautiful things around here¨, referring to dandelions. This show irony because the camp is actually a dull place and it has a cheerful name.…
1. In the essay, Outsiders/Insiders, Joseph Boskin, history professor who taught 30 years at Boston University African American studies, director of Urban Studies and Public Program and whose devoted his time and research on the study of American Humor and its relationship to social change and historical events and author of many books of humor's peculiar lies claims that jokes have been greatly influenced by people's personal experiences in American society.…
Throughout Sherman Alexie’s short story, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the narrator, Jackson Jackson, manages to distance himself from his present predicament of being homeless and penniless. He does so while on a ‘quest’ (Alexie 18) to buy back his grandmother’s regalia, which he discovered in a local pawn shop. Jackson starts off with five dollars in which to turn into nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars over the course of twenty-four hours, and while he does manage to get his hands on some money, his nature and the viscous cycle state of his situation causes him to lose sight of his ultimate goal.…
“The passive voice encourages passivity. It calms the audience, which makes it a great pathos trick.” (Heinrichs 97) In a way the passive voice helps to calm a situation by suggesting something happened all on its own. The author then introduces us to how to deal with an audience who is already in an emotional state by using ‘System One’ and ‘System Two’. System one is when your brain acts on instinct where as system two is where you tend to be more skeptical and figure this out. Another way to diffuse your audience’s emotion is to use humor. Here we learn of five types of humor. Urbane humor is more for a smarter audience since it consists more world plays like puns and metaphors. Wit is only a little amusing because instead of world play it feeds off of the situation. Facetious humor is solely based on making you laugh, basically jokes. Banter is when you attack the audience with comebacks and insults. Lastly setting a backfire is when you soothe your audience’s emotions by dramatizing the…
“That’s really funny!” That phrase may bring back memories that are associated with happiness. High comedy comes in more forms than just sophisticated jokes, it also involves elements such as wit, wordplay, sarcasm, puns, hyperboles, and allusions. The two most important elements of high comedy allusions and wordplay are used by many comedians, television shows, and literature. Allusions and wordplay are important elements because they require the audience to think about what is said, keeping them engaged and amused. Through all of these examples, the universal truth of not judging a book by it’s cover is addressed.…
Humor - Humor is apparent in his section headings, “The Prince of Prescriptivists”, “Linguists Spring into Action” (MacNeil, page 307) and in the examples that he includes “In downtown Pittsburgh—pronounced “dahntahn”—the question, ‘Did you eat yet?’ sounds like ‘Jeet jet?’”(MacNeil, page 312). He uses humor to keep the audience's attention, so he can insert more sensitive and educational topics.…
An important stylistic choice Alexie makes in this story is the nonchalant voice, that apathetic reactions Jackson has to most action in the plot. Jackson is extremely straight forward with the way his is feeling, with what he is thinking, and simply states these thoughts through simple syntax throughout the story. For example, at one point he states, “After eating, I walked outside and vomited on the sidewalk. I hated to lose my food so soon after eating it. As an alcoholic Indian with a busted stomach, I always hope I can keep enough…
“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie is the story of the mission of the humorous character of Jackson Jackson. Jackson Jackson is a homeless Spokane Indian in search of money to repurchase the regalia that was stolen from his grandmother about 50 years ago. He embarks on a journey to collect 999 dollars, the amount of money the pawnbroker is willing to sell the regalia for. Throughout this journey, the humorous character of Jackson Jackson unravels to reveal a man of culture. Although Jackson has left Spokane to attend college in Seattle, his Indian culture remains an important part of him. He constantly speaks of his Indian beliefs, ways, and customs. In the opening sentence, Jackson immediately acknowledges that he is Indian and differentiates his race from “hungry white folks” (8). As the story progresses, he uses many other statements to distinguish his race; he explains that Indians “don’t want to be perfect, because only God is perfect” (11). This distinctive Indian belief is used to prove that the regalia indeed belonged to his grandmother. Jackson’s culture also proves to play a substantial part in his decisions in regards to the money he needs for the regalia. Whenever he happens to gather a bit of money, it is always squandered almost immediately after, due to Jackson’s over-abundant sense of generosity. After winning one hundred dollars from a lottery ticket, he gives a fifth of it to Mary, the cashier in the Korean grocery store. At first, Mary refuses, but Jackson insists that it is, yet again, “an Indian thing” (18). His cultural sharing tendency also leads him to spend the remaining eighty dollars on whiskey shots for everyone at the bar. One can say that his decision was driven by alcoholism as well as ignorance, but the sense of family among those of his own race also impacted him when he decided that “[he] and his cousins [were] going to be drinking eighty shots” (18). Clearly,…
T. Coraghessan Boyle uses irony in his short story Carnal Knowledge, which gives it a humorous tone. The way the narrator reacts to ironic events shapes our understanding of both him, and the meaning of the story as a whole; although humans can adapt to their surroundings to get want they want, they will always return to their original basic set of morals and standards.…
I believe that the best practices in early childhood education include children’s ideas, parent’s values and teacher’s suggestions. All of these will benefit children’s learning as well as give them a good understanding of the environment around them. Teachers should be flexible with the daily schedule and open to different learning opportunities. This way, children will have less structured time and more opportunities to explore and learn. As I observe in some of the childcare centers, children do not have enough time to play or finish their investigation and projects. They are hurried to be putting their toys away, and this does not benefit their learning. Teachers should encourage children to explore and investigate the topic further. The center’s policies should exclude time outs, as it does not improve children’s behavior, but rather stimulates him to get more attention. Teachers should encourage children to solve problems, and help them out if they see that serious issue occurs. Also, the physical environment has a big impact on best practices too. It should be filled with warm colors and feel like home to children. If the children will feel like at home, they will feel safe, which will benefit their learning.…
As a Filipino, a few of the stereotypes I hear about Filipinos are: we are all nurses who work two jobs, we are very kind people, or we all own a van. I became a nurse by accident when I realized that I valued job satisfaction, but I do not work two jobs. I am a nice person most of the time, but so are my white, black, and other Asian friends. I swore I would never get a van, but I gave in when I had kids. I van is roomier, quieter, and the ride is smoother. I have other siblings who do not fit most of the Filipino stereotypes. I happen to hit all the stereotypes of my ethnicity. However, there is a story behind each and every one of them. Just like in the story on “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” there is a story behind the alcoholism and displacement…
I believe that children learn best when they are taught under certain conditions and in certain ways. Some of these are……
Joseph Heller uses black humor to express normally emotional scenarios in humorous ways in his writing. One of the clearest examples of Joseph Heller using black humor is in his novel, Catch-22. The story follows Yossarian, a man enlisted in the United States Air Force during World War II, and his frightening experiences while in service. Yossarian witnesses many scenes throughout the story which most people would find extremely emotional or graphic during the war (or even today), but Joseph Heller manages to make these scenes humorous so that people could temporarily forget about the seriousness of the situation and that some of the scenes were things that were actually happening during World War II.…
In O.Henry’s short story “The Ransom of Red Chief,” he uses situational irony to create a humorous effect.…
Maupassant also uses situational irony to create humor. Situational irony is when something happens that the reader doesn’t expect. “The precautions I had taken…only brought about the interlude I had been striving to avoid” (Maupassant 2). The humor is the narrator had taken precautions to prevent a prank but instead caused the pranks upon himself.…