Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades expresses irony in many ways. The irony captivates the audience and make them read on. Puskin must be appreciated for setting up the story to point towards one outcome and then suddenly shifting gears towards another, outrageous and ironic, outcome. The Queen of Spades highlights the expression “expect the unexpected”.

Pushkin also uses the thrill of gambling to keep his audience excited. He models the classical gambler (form their chats of past winnings, to the intense concentration they put into each game) to give a sense of realism and makes the audience feel as though they were gambling. Pushkin plays on the audience’s superstition. He creates rumor that a certain woman knows how to play a perfect game. In doing this, Puskin comically makes the audience gamble to gamble by testing their faith in a drunken vision. Pushkin perfectly sets his story to have an ironic ending. He makes the audience believe that the vision was real and that the gambler will win, marry the girl, and live happily ever after. After setting up a tense card game that favors the gambler, Pushkin jolts a dramatic turn of events on the last hand. He makes the gambler feel absentminded and regretful. The gambler was so overconfident in the outcome, that he forgot what to do to actually reach it. The gambler automatically though he was going to win without any complications.

The Queen of Spades is an enjoyable comedy for all of its irony. The fantastic jolt at the end of the story makes the audience’s blood run and their minds think over the entire story again. A good book is not predictable: This makes The Queen of Spades a masterpiece.

Word Count: 287