Storytelling
“When the Clock Strikes” is all by itself a deep dive into the profoundly ironic mind of the author. In this retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale, the story begins the description of the famous clock which strikes midnight, but something is definitely off. For one thing, the first two paragraphs are all about the clock. And this leads relentlessly to the first indication that irony is the controlling literary device:
“Possibly you have heard the story? No? Oh, but I am certain that you have heard it, in another form, perhaps.”
The Thing About Ashella
Cinders are replaced by ashes in the story’s renaming of its heroine. But the name is only the beginning of changes. By the end, it is quite clear that this is, indeed, a very darkly ironic repurposing of the familiar story which does not quite seem as familiar anymore:
“I have no further news of the girl Ashella, the witch. A devotee of Satanas, she has doubtless worked plentiful woe in the world. And a witch is long-lived.”
The Slipper Thing
Of course, few specific elements of the Cinderella story are quite as predominant as the glass slipper. Cinderella is in such a hurry to escape at midnight before her secret gets out that she leaves behind just one clue for the prince to establish her true identity. The irony in Lee’s retelling is sharp and jarring:
“…the prince ran through the city toward the merchant’s house, and on the road, the intriguers waylaid and slew him. As he fell, the glass shoe dropped from his hands and shattered in a thousand fragments. There is little else worth mentioning.”
Paradox
Lee’s reinterpretation of the Cinderella fairy tale is filled with examples of irony, and one of the author’s favorite modes of irony is paradox. One of the most striking examples of this form of ironic paradox is, ironically, one of the few elements of this version that sticks with tradition. For even though—or because—she may be a Satanic witch, Ashella is still quite the startling figure of beauty when she enters the ball:
“She was so beautiful that it was hard to look at her for very long.”
Happily Ever After?
The traditional ending of fairy tales, of course, is that everybody lives happily ever after. The ending of “When the Clock Strikes” pours the irony on thick with its ending in which just the opposite occurs:
“Within a year, external enemies were at the gates. A year more, and the city had been sacked, half burned out, ruined.”
