How Is Situational Irony Used In Lamb To The Slaughter

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“‘Don't do it Judson!’ she gasped ‘It’s horrible-it’s murder’”. What happens next could be anyone's guess. This feeling, of not knowing what happens next, is suspense. Suspense: a state or feeling of excitement or anxious uncertainty of what may happen. There are multiple ways to create suspense, but the best ways are situational irony, dramatic irony, and not including a lot of detail. Dramatic irony can be seen in Lamb to the Slaughter, and situational irony and lack of detail can be seen in Ruthless.

Firstly, situational irony is when something that’s not supposed to happen, happens. An example of this is in Ruthless, when Judson drinks the poisoned whiskey that he poisoned himself. It usually takes most readers by surprise, which makes it a vital element when it comes to building suspense. It’s probably best to use situational irony near the end of a story to make it more dramatic. The part where Judson drinks the poison was near the end, “...A small whiskey glass pressed to his lips. Dazed and …show more content…
Lack of information can create a lot of confusion in the reader’s minds and that can make it hard to predict what could come next. It’s like listening to half of a conversation and coming back after 30 minutes. You only know a little bit, so you can only guess what’s going on. This can be found in Ruthless: “His closed hand opened and he put upon the table two tiny white pellets as he started to uncork the whiskey. Her eyes borrowed as she watched him. She had learned to dread that tone of his voice; it was the tone he used when he was planning to put something over in a business deal”[10]. They don’t say directly that Judson was poisoning the beverage, they only said that he only did what he was doing during a business deal. And that again helps create questions in the reader's minds which leads to uncertainty about what may happen and people can only guess what’s going to
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