Irony And Conflict In 'The Plate Of Peas'

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In the short story, The Plate of Peas, by Richard J. Beyer, the author uses many different strategies in order to develop the characters and their relationships. He uses irony and conflict to do so. He also uses dialogue and sensory details. By using these strategies, he was able to further expand the characters and relationships. The whole plot of the short story has to do with irony and conflict in many ways. For example, at the beginning of the story, the main character clearly states, “I do not like peas now. I do not like peas then. I have always hated peas. It is a complete mystery to me why anyone would voluntarily eat peas. I do not eat them at home. I did not eat them at restaurants. And I certainly was not about to eat them now.” …show more content…

First of all, just reading the dialogue it was pretty evident that his mother and grandmother were competitive with each other. For example, “‘Mother,’ said my mom in her warning voice. ‘He doesn’t like peas. Leave him alone.’... ‘I’ll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas,’ ‘I can do what I want, Ellen, and you can’t stop me.’” When you read this conversation, you can tell that the mother and grandmother are both competitive. Moreover, his mother is competitive and you can see that when she keeps making eats his peas, even years after this incident, and when he doesn’t want to all she says is, “‘You ate them for money. You can eat them for love.’” Just by saying this it shows just how mad she was when she “lost” and how she will still make him eat the peas to this day. Second of all, sensory details also showed the characters’ personality. When the author uses the main character to explain how the mother glares a lot and gives him “the cold eye” it just shows how aggressive and ruthless she is, especially when she loses. He also uses words like nervous and haunt to show how the main character is scared of his mother when she glares at him and how he does not really like conflict. Lastly, Richard J. Beyer used words like “certain glint to her eye” and “grim set to her jaw” and “self-satisfied look” to describe the grandmother, you can tell where his mother got her

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