Planning his own death
One of the most ironical ideas which appears in the story "Sweat’’ is the way in which Sykes, Delia’s husband, died at the end of the story. Sykes planned to murder his wife by putting a very dangerous snake in the laundry basket she was using every day while working. Luckily, Delia found out about her husband’s plan and stayed away from the laundry basket. Ironically, Sykes was the one to go and check the basket, disturbing the snake and being bitten by it as a result. Because of this, Sykes died a slow and agonizing death while his wife was watching him from a safe distance.
The one who introduced them
"The Gilded Six-Bits’’ is a story through which the narrator presents the way in which a happy marriage was almost destroyed by the betrayal of one of the spouses. What is ironic is this situation is the fact that the cheating partner, the wife in this case, would have never cheated on her husband if he would have not introduced her to the man who will eventually seduce her. Thus, in a way, the husband is the one responsible for pushing his wife into the arms of another man.
Let the child dream
John’s father in "John Redding Goes to Sea’’ is described by the narrator as being a kind man, a person who wanted, above all, to see his child happy. Because of this, he tried not to crush his son’s dreams, but rather to push him to do everything in his power to make those dreams come true. The ironical element in the story is the way in which the narrator describes the father’s pursuit of his own dreams, or rather the lack of it. The father had no dreams of his own, but rather accepted his faith as if it was final and did nothing to improve his state in life.
He will be killed
After Spunk and Lena leave the bar, Joe comes in and he is told about what just happened. Feeling the need to protect his masculinity, Joe goes searching for Spunk and Lena, vowing to kill Spunk and get Lena back. As soon as Joe exists the bar, the men comment how Joe will most likely be killed if he goes searching for Spunk, an event which does take place. The ironic idea is the way in which the men still insisted Joe goes looking for Spunk, even though they knew how dangerous it was.
Scared of a bobcat
A last ironic element appears at the end of the story "Spunk’’, then the major character, Spunk, is woken up in the middle of the night by a bobcat. Spunk found himself facing the animal outside and while Spunk readied himself to shot the bobcat, he found himself unable to because the bobcat reminded him of Joe, the man he killed. The reason why this scene is ironic is because while Spunk had no troubles killing Joe, he had a difficult time shooting an animal which reminded him of his former enemy.
