[The Oxford Book of English Short Stories] It's ironic to see adult characters behaving childishly in some stories and children in others being worldly adults. Do you agree with this statement?

I agree that it's ironic to see adult characters being childish and children being worldly adults and it's based on the statements below. In some stories, adults are illustrated in childish character so as to reveal some phenomenon and in the society, such as the idleness of the upper class and man's pride. Archibald and Aurelia in 'The reverent wooing of Archibald' and Johnson from the 'Dream Cargoes' are the examples. On the contrary, the …

…above illustration, it can be seen that the adults in the selected stories act childishly and their behaviours carry the writer's criticisms of some tendencies in respective societies. Meanwhile, the children in the two stories who behaved worldly reflect the writers' views towards wars. To sum up, the contrasts between them further reveal the irony as the mismatch in these characters' behaviours together with the themes that they bring out are considered as very ironic.