Irony is a literary device that makes words and its meanings disparately comprehended to the reader. In Anton Chekhov’s "Rothschild’s Violin," irony is often used to generate contradictions and opposites to evoke reflections upon readers. In this essay, how irony helps the author to present the right ways of seeing life and humanity will be explained. First of all, the irony in the beginning of the story introduces an optimistic life view to the readers. In the first few lines of the story, Yakov comments “the people who lived in it (the village) were mostly old folks who died so rarely it was quite annoying.” Normally, we will perceive a low death rate as a blessing to our society. Yet, the word “annoying” explicitly indicates Yakov’s resentment towards the rare death situation in his town. Through this ironic expression, we may identify Yakov’s bitterness, as he wanted people to die so that he can earn money by making the coffins. By presenting such a hopeless irony towards life, the author wants the readers to rethink the meaning of life and death and adopt a more positive life view rather than Yakov’s pessimistic and sorrowful life view. Secondly, irony helps the readers to see the possibilities of life instead of losses. After Yakov knows he is about to die, he is drowned in depression and realizes that “from life you just made a loss, but for death you make a profit” and questions “why was the world set up in such a strange way so that life, which a human being only gets once, bring no profits?” The irony used is actually challenging the concept of life as a gain and death as a loss, hence guiding readers to reevaluate the motif of the story – the true meaning of life and death. The author, through presenting a distorted way of seeing life, wants the readers to appreciate life as there are countless precious moments and opportunities, and one should definitely not only focus on the mistakes and loss