Jameel’s Tearlessness - “Monkey Business”
Joseph Geha explicates, “Even at the funeral Jameel had acted strange, a boy of five standing tearless in front of his own mother’s coffin, while Zizi himself had to be supported on either side by an uncle.” Jameel’s ironic stoicism would not be anticipated considering is young age. He is more stoic than his father. Ordinarily, Jameel would have embraced tantrums and his father would be the one to comfort him. The irony of Jameel’s mannerism differentiates him from his father and depicts him as an idyllic “practical man” that can suppress his grief.
The Irony of Prayers - “Through and Through”
The narrator affirms, “ I have prayed to Saint Helen, who first recovered the True Cross, and to Saint Anthony of Padua, finder and lost things. I am not drinking. At first I saw only rust streaks and flaked paint, not even a pattern. The diagrams published in Time Magazine didn’t help me any, even with these bifocals. I tried polarized sunglasses, and they were no help. Wished for those red-and-green lenses from the 3-D movies of the fifties. Then my eyes started playing tricks on me.” The narrator beseeches the hallowed saints with the conviction that they would reinstate his dwindling sight. The supplication of saints during petitions is ironic since it does not generate substantive outcomes. Perhaps , the irony hints at long-standing Karma; although the narrator did not forfeit his sight, like Paul, when he cruised Damascus, he misplaces it during his old age. He could have straightforwardly misplaced his eyesight at twenty two for he had indemnified an illegal and immoral offense of subsidizing Jackie Kennedy’s extermination, but age-old Karma derides him when her is susceptible and elderly.
