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Similes
Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Motivational Photographs:
The final scene of the story—in which the doctor hangs motivational photos of healed injuries next to the hospital’s rehabilitation machines—contains a few layers of situational irony, as seen in the following passage:
When [the major] came back, there were large framed photographs around the wall, of all sorts of wounds before and after they had been cured by the machines. In front of the machine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that were completely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always understood we were the first to use the machines. The photographs did not make much difference to the major because he only looked out of the window.
Related Themes:
