Describe the tone used in the poem, "Richard Corey."

I would describe the tone as ironic. The poet spends most of the poem indicating how much people wanted to be like "Richard Cory". They envied his manners, his wealth and his status. Everyone "wished that we were in his place." Then suddenly, in the last line, we discover Cory has killed himself. This is the ultimate irony. Obviously, Cory was terribly unhappy with his life and his outside appearance hid a much deeper problem. This is fits the definition of irony perfectly, "something unexpected." From the initial shock of the ending, we discover that people are not always what they seems to be on the outside.