"'My brave little man!' she said with her eyes shining. 'It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel.'" -pg. 351
I think the most prevalent element in this story was irony. There were at least two spots where I noticed situational irony that made me chuckle. First, the man's son (who is also the narrator) is the one who gets drunk, instead of the alcoholic that the audience expects. Also, I wasn't sure if the title was meant seriously about the father, who actually was an alcoholic. Or it could be meant as a joke about the son who got drunk once.
Anyways, the other irony I was amused by was at the very ending. The mother sees her drunken son, cut, and tends to him because he appears to be a victim. She also tells him that he saved his father, which is partially true. In a way, if the son hadn't gotten drunk and required going home, it would have been the father being drug home by the boy. The part that's ironic is that the boy was simply curious when he drank the porter; he inadvertently saved his father's life that night, but his mother gives him full credit.
The other thing I don't understand is that, even though the boy saved his father's life by getting drunk in his place, the boy still made a fool of himself. So even if that saved the father by deterring him against alcohol, it opened up the drink to the young boy, probably creating a whole other drunkard.
I think the most prevalent element in this story was irony. There were at least two spots where I noticed situational irony that made me chuckle. First, the man's son (who is also the narrator) is the one who gets drunk, instead of the alcoholic that the audience expects. Also, I wasn't sure if the title was meant seriously about the father, who actually was an alcoholic. Or it could be meant as a joke about the son who got drunk once.
Anyways, the other irony I was amused by was at the very ending. The mother sees her drunken son, cut, and tends to him because he appears to be a victim. She also tells him that he saved his father, which is partially true. In a way, if the son hadn't gotten drunk and required going home, it would have been the father being drug home by the boy. The part that's ironic is that the boy was simply curious when he drank the porter; he inadvertently saved his father's life that night, but his mother gives him full credit.
The other thing I don't understand is that, even though the boy saved his father's life by getting drunk in his place, the boy still made a fool of himself. So even if that saved the father by deterring him against alcohol, it opened up the drink to the young boy, probably creating a whole other drunkard.
