Pretending
Irene Westcott “was a pleasant, rather plain girl with soft brown hair and a wide, fine forehead.” She wasn’t neither extremely beautiful nor gifted, but she was quite pleasant to deal with. The Westcott had average income and seemed to be happy with the things they had. The irony of Irene Westcott’s life was the fact that she “wore a coat of fitch skin dyed to resemble mink.” Although it was stated that they were satisfied with their average income, Irene had to or simply wanted to look as someone who had a lot more money than they had.
Different people
Jim and Irene used to like to attend the parties arranged by their friends from time to time. However, that day was an exception. Irene was rather reluctant to go there, she seemed “sad and vague” and even said that “a Salvation Army band” was “so much nicer” than a lot of people they knew. Irene even “interrupted her hostess rudely and stared at the people across the table from her with an intensity for which she would have punished her children.” The irony of that situation was that she could stay at home. However, she decided to come and grace others with her dislike. More often than not, we have a choice what we want to do.
Money
Irene was depressed. It seemed that everyone was talking only about money that days. Jim found her crying and lamenting, asking to do something to save their neighbor from her husband’s fists. Later on, she managed to calm down a little bit and it was Jim who helped her to do it. Her reassured her that they were “not hypocritical or worried about money or dishonest.” He said her he loved her. The irony of it was that as soon as they were done discussing how different they were from the rest, they started talking about money Jim had paid for the radio.
