Haircut: Irony

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

in Doc Stair and even went so far as to imitate Stair's voice on the phone and set up a phony meeting with Julie then chased her down the street when she showed up. The fact that Whitey narrates these stories in first person doesn't soften Jim's awful practical jokes but shows the barber's equally insensitive ignorance making Jim's character all the more plausible.
Most citizens at the barbershop and pool hall admire Jim's "jokes" and even participate in ridiculing some of the secondary characters Lardner introduces in the story. By contrast, the secondary characters are sensitive characters (Doc Stair, Julie Gregg, and Paul) and they are the ones which stand out in the story and are victims of Jim and the gang's humiliation. We can say that Jim Kendall isn't as important to the story as the observer, Whitey, whose values and reactions confirm the community values and spiritual poverty that the author is attacking.
Although Lardner's story starts off as a light satire of small ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

CITE THIS PAGE: