The Drunkard

"'Twill be all over the road,' whimpered Father. 'Never again, never again, not if I live to be a thousand!' To this day I don't know whether he was forswearing me or the drink." p. 350

The biggest thing for me from this short story was the irony. The obvious irony was when the son got drunk. This whole time the father had been getting drunk while other people had to take care of him. However, this time around, the son stole the father's alcohol in hopes that he would not get drunk. Contrary to his (the son's) belief was that HE ended up getting drunk. This worked out in his favor though. The father saw a mirror image to what he was like when he is drunk and he was the one taking care of his son now. This turned his point of view around and eventually aided in him quitting the alcohol.

Another irony that someone in my small group mentioned was that maybe there was some sort of parallel between the funeral and the alcoholic tendencies. The mother was hinting at the father drinking himself to death. The irony comes to play when he was getting drunk at funerals. I thought that was kind of interesting and I'm not really sure if that's an actual irony of the story or not.