Reflection: The Drunkard

Although Mullins was not here to explain the details of this story, I still found it very interesting. Upon first reading it, I didnt really see anything but a concise and clearly humorous short story. It wasnt until I took the quiz that I realized how irony and humor actually played a role in this story. When asked to identify the irony from the story, I suddenly noticed that it contained a considerable amount. The most notable of which being when Larry, after the funeral, proceeded to drink his father's pint of beer without his apporval or knowledge of it happening. With the fact that Larry is a child, we did not expect this kind of thing to happen. In addition, his actions actually caused a whole new aspect of irony to be thrown into this story. We know from the beginning of the story that Larry's father is a recent and/or recovering alcoholic. With this in mind, the end of the story becomes ironic in the fact that he ends up not reverting back to his old ways. Instead, his son counteracts his lurking addiction by making a scene of himself after drinking the beer. This is ironic because Larry has saved his father from excessive drinking by drinking excessively. This concept causes the story to take on both a ironic and yet humorous aire.