People often know what is right, but many times they don’t do what’s right.  In all three stories that we read in class the main characters are faced with choices that will test their integrity, and they all choose to do what they believe was right.  Two of the stories we read involved dictators, and one of them involved a man who had something stolen from him.  In the stories “The Stub Book”, “Just Lather, That’s All”, and “Blood of the Martyrs” the main characters do what they believe is right, because they know what they believe in and they are willing to stand up for it.

            In “The Stub Book”, Beautyseeker knows that his pumpkins were stolen by So-and-So and he doesn’t let him get away with it.  Beautyseeker said, “I’ll go to Cadiz this morning by the hour boat, and there I’ll get the rascal and recover the daughters of my rearing!” (67). This quote shows that Beautyseeker is going to get justice, because he believes that is the right thing to do.  When an official challenges Beautyseeker to prove the pumpkins are his he says, “Well, you’ll see right now I’ll prove to the whole world, right here, that these pumpkins grew up in my truck patch” (68).  Beautyseeker could have backed down from what he believed, but he was persistent in doing the right thing. 

            The barber in the story “Just Lather, That’s All” was faced with a huge decision of whether to kill the dictator, or not.  One of the thoughts that the barber thinks when he is deciding if he should kill the dictator or not is, “I don’t want blood on my hands.” (77).  This quote shows that the barber is not a murderer, and that he won’t kill someone, because he doesn’t believe that would be right.  He also thinks, “I am only a barber.  Each person has his own place in the scheme of things.” (77). The barber believes that he isn’t who should decide if someone lives or dies, because everyone has a place and is there for a reason.

            Professor Malzius from “The Blood of the Martyrs” is a man who knows the truth.  When a dictator asks him to lie about his scientific findings, he refuses.  Malzius says, “Buy you cannot kill truth.” (93). Malzius believes that it would be wrong to deceive a whole nation, and the punishment for this is death.  Malzius knows that even though he will die for what he believes in, the truth will never die.  Malzius was hones, and had integrity even in the face of death.

            Sometimes doing the right thing is really hard.  To be able to do the right thing you need to really know what you believe in.  Malzius, Old Beautyseeker, and the barber were able to show integrity, even though they were treated unjustly because they were firm in their beliefs.  Even though doing the right thing was hard and they were treated unjustly for doing it, they still chose to do it.

Many times situations occur that are the exact opposite of what is expected.  Often, when situations like this happen they are examples of irony.  Edgar Allan Poe was one writer who used irony in his stories.  He wrote the story “The Cask of Amontillado” which is about a man called Montressor who takes revenge on an unexpecting friend.  Edgar Allan Poe uses verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony to keep his story suspenseful.

In “The Cask of Amontillado” verbal irony is one type of irony that Poe uses.  When Montressor greets Fortunato as an old friend, he says, “You are luckily met” (55).  In reality, Montressor doesn’t think that Fortunato is lucky because he knows that he is going to kill him.  While Montressor is leading Fortunato to his death, he makes a toast and says, “And I to your long life” (56).  Montressor means completely the opposite when he says that, he knows that Fortunato is going to have a short life.  Verbal irony helps keep the story suspenseful because it keeps the reader guessing and wondering what is going to happen next.

Dramatic irony is also used in Edgar Allan Poe’s story to build suspense.  At the beginning when Montressor says, “I vowed revenge” (54) we know that he’s planning to do something to Fortunato, but Fortunato is ignorant of this.  Montressor carries out his revenge by leading Fortunato down a crypt so that he can later leave him there to die.  In another part of the story it says, “I passed down a long and winding staircase requesting him to be cautious as he followed” (55).  In reality Montressor doesn’t care about Fortunato’s welfare, and again, Fortunato is ignorant of Montressor’s real intentions.

Situational irony is when the turn of events is totally unexpected.  “Throwing the links around his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it” (58).  This quote shows the fate of Fortunato.  Fortunato doesn’t expect this turn of events at all, he is totally surprised that someone he assumed to be his friend would do something to hurt him.  Also, the reader knows from the very beginning that Montressor is planning to kill Fortunato, but we don’t expect it to be so brutal and such a long death that he has planned for him.

These are some of the many ways that Edgar Allan Poe uses the three types of irony to build suspense in his story.  The fact that the reader knows more about the situation than the actual character does makes them want to keep reading to find out what happens.  Irony is something that happens often in real life, and when applied to writing can help create a very suspenseful effect.

           “Bye Mom!” I yelled as I got out of my car and headed toward the sixth grade line in front of the containers.  Mr. Penn came out, and as he did every morning sad enthusiastically,

            “Good morning sixth grade!”

            “Good morning Mr. Penn,” We all sing-songed back.  He stepped aside and we all ran into our class to unpack and get our stuff ready.

            “Class!” Mr. Penn said, “I have an important announcement to tell you after lunch, but I want to keep you wondering until then. Now, who wants to lead our song?”

            “Me!” Sarah yelled, then started stomping and clapping and singing, “This is they way, hey we start the day…”

            After lunch we were all sitting eagerly waiting for Mr. Penn to make his announcement. All day I was wondering what the news was, and everyone had been talking about it.

            “Class,” Mr. Penn said, “my announcement is that we are going to have a new student!”  The class immediately erupted with yells and talking.  Having a new student was so exciting!  Mr. Penn continued,

            “His name is Benji and he is from Texas.  He is coming tomorrow for the last half of the day to meet you all.”  All the rest of the day everyone was talking.

            “He’s from Texas; I think he’ll be cute.”  Genesis said.

            “All the Texans I’ve seen are white, blonde, and have tons of freckles, and blue eyes.”  I said.  “He’ll probably look like that…”

            “We haven’t had a new boy in our class for a long time.”  Celina added.

            “I still think he’ll be cute.”  Genesis said.

            “Well, we’ll know what he looks like tomorrow I guess…”

            The next day at school everyone was so excited!  We were all going to meet the new boy today!  After lunch the new boy came to our class.  We all went outside to greet him, and I was so surprised!  He had dark brown hair, dark skin, brown eyes, and no freckles.  He was exactly the opposite of what everyone thought he would look like!

            “Wow, we were all wrong! He’s the exact opposite of what I thought he would look like!”  I said to Celina and Sarah.

            “Yeah, I thought he’d be blonde, and blue eyed,” sighed Celina.

            “Oh well, maybe next year we’ll get a blonde haired and blue eyed Texan!”  Sarah said hopefully.

            “Yeah, maybe we will…”

            We went back inside and played some games with the whole class to get to know the new kid.  It turned out he was in the same group I was in for a game we were playing in history class.  Benji ended up fitting in fine with the class and the rest of the year went by pretty normally.