why is the ending of the story ironic?

Question

this question is about the short story "just lather, that's all"

Answer 1

The supreme irony of this story concerns the secret identity of the barber. When Captain Torres enters the barber's shop, he announces that he wants a shave. The barber recognizes him immediately as the killer of the rebels with whom the barber is secretly affiliated. Throughout the shave, the barber contemplates cutting Torres' throat, but thinks better of it, preferring to give him "just lather, that's all." He refuses to kill Torres in order to protect his secret and to uphold his professional code of a bloodless cut. But, as we find out at the end, Captain Torres has already heard of the barber's possible connection, and he has come to test the man himself. This is the irony--that the barber's secret was no secret at all, and that the captain had one of his own.

Answer 2

As an informant for the rebels, the barber is providing information that will lead to bloodshed. Torres is also a man of violence who causes death and bloodshed. When the barber decides not to kill because he does not want bloodshed on his hands it is the opposite of the stand he has taken as an informant, so the reasoning is ironic, unexpected. The barber is mentally separating the bloodshed caused by his passing on information, and here where he would actually be the one directly committing the act, something most people caught up in a revolution would be willing and eager to do.