Ironic, ehh?

"... If women might stop at home and look after their children themselves!"
The Drunkard, pg. 348

This story is loaded with instance after instance of irony. The father seems to blame everyone but himself for the actions that lead him to negative things. For instance, when he complains that his wife should look after the children, he forgets that the son is sent along because the mother had to go into work. The mother only had to go into work because the father refused. Also, the son is ironically sent along to watch over his father, which doesn't happen exactly. As the ending shows, though, he does end up preventing his father from getting drunk or wasting all of the family's money. In another instance of irony, his intentions weren't even to prevent his father from drinking- they were simply out of curiousity. I also found it ironic that the reason the son was able to drink his father's drink was because his father was being cocky, as he "deliberately turned his back on the pint, leaned one elbow on the counter in the attitude of a man who did not know there was a pint behind him".  I guess, as they say, what comes around goes around.