I'm A Fool

             "I'm A Fool" by Sherwood Anderson takes the reader into the mind of a lying, ambivalent, uneducated and somewhat foolish youth. Through his eyes we are told a humorous story of a foolish incident in which he compulsively lies to a beautiful girl in attempt to win her companionship. His plan backfires when he realizes that she likes him for who he is, not the imaginary character whom he claimed himself to be. The insightful theme which Anderson reveals in "I'm A Fool", deals with the inevitable consequences associated with dishonesty and deceitfulness, and he is able to effectively reveal this theme with the use of dramatic irony, a first person point of view, and various elements of character.
             Dramatic irony is used occasionally by Anderson as a means of indirectly transcending his own thoughts. Such occurrences are suttle and difficult to detect because the nature of the story's first person point of view prohibits Anderson from directly expressing his own personal thoughts to the reader. For instance, the narrator believes that stealing, swearing, getting drunk, and bandaging horses is of far greater importance than a high school diploma or university degree. Anderson is implementing dramatic irony because what the narrator says is not what the reader knows to be true; the reader knows that the skills which the narrator possesses are of little or no importance in our society. Another example of dramatic irony is when the narrator believes the whiskey and the well-dressed dandy caused him to lie to Lucy Wesson. The reader knows, however, that the narrator lied in fear of rejection.
             One aspect of "I'm A Fool" that the reader instantly becomes aware of, is its incorrect grammar and simple, unexpressive and reoccurring descriptive words. The story is riddled with simple adverbs and injections that are used to describe the narrators emotions such as "Gee whizz!", "peachy", and "gay". The narrator's primitive vocabulary in some wa
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I'm A Fool. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 13:45, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/81377.html