Haircut: Irony The tone of the short story "Haircut" is dramatic irony, for the remarks of the first-person narrator, Whitey the small town barber, have the opposite effect from what he intends. Whitey does not understand the implications of his stories when he describes Jim as a joker or "a card" and unwittingly shows him to be a mean and despicable man. At the same time, Whitey reveals himself to be as unperceptive, unintelligent, insensitive and adolescent as Jim himself. Whitey's misplaced admiration for Jim Kendall, a cruel, crude practical joker, establishes Whitey as a naive narrator. Lardner's choice of a naive narr