First Confession Irony

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Comedy is one of the most important elements of the human experience. It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without humoristic elements. This is something that Frank O' Connor takes advantage of and manifests in his short story "First Confession". He accomplishes this by employing numerous literary devices, especially irony. The juxtaposition of contradictory elements also leads to comedy, which this author uses masterfully; this includes the paradoxes of the Catholic religion, which the author contemplates in the story. Finally, the characters themselves are cartoonish, which also leads to the humor in the story. O' Connor's story "First Confession" employs irony, contradiction and characterization in order to inject comedy into his story. One of the most comic aspects of "First Confession" is its use of irony. This is especially noticeable in the end of the story, which serves as the punch line to the whole tale. After being oppressed with discourses with respect to sin and an unpleasant afterlife, the author ends up actually giving candy to a sinner for going to confess herself. Furthermore, if the author knows that this is the way that the Catholic Church works, the whole story serves as ironic foreshadowing to this moment. Evidently, the ironic elements in this …show more content…

These elements are comic because of how exaggerated and ignorant the characters are. The ending is especially funny because it subverts the whole story, contradicting the frightening elements of the teacher that is supposed to lead them towards salvation, but only leads them to sin. This is juxtaposed to the ending, when one of the first girls that does the communion are prized with candy. It is interesting to see how an author can inject social and religious commentary to such a simple story through the use of

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