7Pauline Zuffa Zuffa 1
Ms. Carroccia
ENG2D1-01
17/10/16
Honesty is The Best Policy
Have you ever wondered if being honest is the best thing to do in a difficult situation? "The Force of Luck", by Rudolfo A. Anaya is about two rich men who had an intense argument about whether it is luck or money which makes a man prosperous. Both men wanted to prove that they were right, so they later decided to test their theory on a poor miller they found in a nearby small village. Over the course of this story, the miller encountered both 'bad luck' and 'good luck' scenarios which essentially left the original theory presented by the two men unanswered. The theme of honesty is revealed to the reader through various fragments in the story where the miller experienced different forms of ironic events. Also, the way the author uses the characters honesty for proof and understanding, allows the reader to see that honesty is always the best option in a hard situation. This essay will attempt to prove how Anaya illustrates the theme of "honesty" in this story through the use of the following three literary devices which are situational irony, dramatic irony, and character.
The theme of honesty is shown through situational irony, when the miller loses the first two hundred dollars that he received from the one man who believed in luck. When the miller encountered an attack from a hawk on his way home, in the struggle he ended up losing the bundle of money. After this unfortunate incident happened, three months later when the two men approached the miller, the miller decided to be honest and tell them truth about what had happened to the money.
Zuffa 2
"When the poor miller saw them he was afraid they would accuse him of being a liar and a spendthrift. But he decided to be truthful and as soon as they had greeted each other he told them what had happened to the money" (Anaya 26). Although the miller thought that the two men would say he is a thief for losing the money, it is later determined that both men truly believed his story because of his honesty. His honesty convinced the man who believed in luck to give him another chance. As a result, the man gave the miller another two hundred dollars.
Another way the theme of honesty connected back to the story is through dramatic irony. The miller experienced another 'bad luck' scenario where his wife sells the jar of bran hiding the second amount of money. Dramatic irony is illustrated at this point of the story because at the end of this situation the two men thought the miller's stories were hard to believe. "...
