How Does Sherman Alexie Use Irony

According to Buzzfeed.com, Barry Manilow once sang a song called “I write my own songs”, but he didn’t even write the song himself. Many people would be surprised by this fact, and rightly so because it is ironic. Irony is all around if one looks for it during daily life. Irony adds an exciting factor into everyday life, and that is why it is included in Sherman Alexie’s “Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play “The Star-Spangled Banner” At Woodstock, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children”. Since stories are always more interesting when the unexpected happens, all three authors of the stories have included irony in their writings.
Sherman Alexie’s contains multiple instances of irony throughout the story.

First, Alexie’s father assaults a National Guard private while at a protest for anti-war/violence. One would anticipate that protesters would not have any problems being violent and disruptive, but that is far from the truth. Instead of being peaceful and harmless, Alexie’s father beats up a National Guard member. In the reading, it says, “In his hands my father holds a rifle above his head, captured in that moment just before he proceeded to beat the shit out of the National Guard private lying prone on the ground. A fellow demonstrator holds a sign that is just barely visible over my father’s left shoulder. It read Make Love Not War” (Alexie 25). Alexie’s father behaves the exact opposite of what they are protesting for, and that is unexpected. Afterward, Alexie’s father is put into jail, so he didn’t have to fight in an actual war. One would expect that in jail the father would not experience war, but one sees that this is not the case. Inside of jail, the father encounters a different kind of war, and people were killed each day. Alexie states, “Although his prison sentence effectively kept him out of the war, my father went through a different kind of war behind bars” (Alexie 25). Getting sent to jail saved Alexie’s father from fighting in Vietnam, but in jail he was in just as much danger, and that is ironic.
Ensuing, Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” there are several displays of irony.

For example, O’Connor employs irony when he gives the little girl the name of June Star. With a name like June Star, readers would expect that she is a nice sweet little girl, but this is not true. Instead, June Star is a bratty and rude little girl with no manners. For example, she says rudely to her grandmother, “She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (O’Connor 1). This point illustrates June Star’s lack of manners and her rude nature, and that is a reversal of what is expected of a girl with the name of June Star. Next, with a title like, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, one would expect that the family would encounter a good man. Contrary to one’s assumptions, the family runs into a wicked man, a criminal. While speaking with a restaurant owner, the grandmother says, “People are certainly not nice like they used to be” (O’Connor 4). The title of the story would lead one to believe that the family would perhaps encounter a good man or person on their trip, but ironically they come face-to-face with a

criminal.
Subsequently, Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes his story more interesting by using irony during different times in his story. For instance, when Pelayo finds the old man that looks like an angel he is surprised. An angel would be expected to have beautiful wings that are clean. In the story however, Pelayo finds that the angel’s wings are dirty, muddy and half-plucked. In the story, the angel’s wings are described as such, “His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud” (Marquez 1). When most people envision an angel’s wings, they think of pure, spotless, and beautiful wings, but that is the opposite of what Marquez finds to be true. In another case, a wise woman advises Pelayo to feed the captive angel mothballs because that is supposedly the food of angels. Readers would anticipate the angel eating the mothballs because the wise woman said it would be so, but this is not the case. The angel refuses to eat any of the mothballs is not what the wise old woman believed would happen. The situation from the story is depicted here, “At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down” (Marquez 2). The wise old woman’s prediction showed to be incorrect because the angle did not eat any of the mothballs, and this is ironic because one would expect the so-called “expert” to be right.
Readers were surprised when they learned that Barry Manilow did not right his own song titled, “I Write My Own Songs”, and readers were also surprised throughout all three readings because the authors used irony. Alexie, O’Connor and Marquez all used irony in their stories that added to the dynamic of the story. Irony was also included during all three stories in order to surprise and further interest the reader. Nobody wants to read books when they know everything that is coming, and authors understand this. Perhaps this is why when reading; readers should always expect the unexpected.