Irony is a literary technique that authors use to engage the readers and create a sense of sarcasm or humor. In “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “the Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, irony is used very frequently. These short stories use the different kinds of ironies to highlight the hypocrisy and develop the themes. The irony in these stories are alike and different because they both use verbal irony, but Poe also includes dramatic irony while Hawthorne includes situational. Verbal irony is when someone says or writes something but means something else. In “Young Goodman Brown” and “Cask of Amontillado” verbal irony is abundantly present and is utilized to further explain the story. In “Young Goodman Brown” Hawthorne…show more content… Dramatic irony is when the reader knows something that some of the characters don’t. “the cough’s a mere nothing: it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough” (Poe 8). A cough won’t kill Fortunato, but later in the story, Montresor will. This quote is foreshadowing that something might happen to Fortunato, but he is not aware of this. However, the readers can tell what might happen before Fortunato can tell. Situational irony is when a situation turns out different than how it is expected to turn out. On the first page of “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne introduces us to the main character, Young Goodman Brown (Hawthorne 3). Brown’s first name is Goodman, but what is ironic is that he turns out being the opposite of his name, so he isn’t good. Another example of situational irony is when Hawthorne introduces us to Goody Cloyse (Hawthorne 6). Her first name is Goody, but she is a witch. This portrays an example of situational irony because she turns out to be the opposite of what we expect. The ironies in "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “the Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe are both alike and different at the same time because they both use verbal irony, but Poe also uses dramatic irony while Hawthorne uses situational irony. Irony is very useful to authors because it makes their story more interesting. It adds sarcasm, humor, and develops
