Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Irony as a principle of structure text
Irony as a principle of structure text
Many authors use irony as a way of questioning the reader or emphasizing a central idea
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Irony as a principle of structure text
There is very subtle hints of irony within this novella, and it is hard to find specific passages in the book that shows irony because the evidence is all spread out in the novella(there isn't much irony anyway).But here are some passages that represent some of the irony that I found: • "He stopped for a moment and looked back and saw in the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing up well behind the skiff's stern. He saw the white naked line of his backbone and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill and all the nakedness between." It took him three days and so much pain to catch the fish and he had even planned out how he's going to sell it, then it just gets eaten by sharks within a day and night.
This thought is just full of irony. • "...he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which was the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week." He had gone eighty-four days without taking a fish and lost his best friend and apprentice, the boy. Then when he sets out to sea, he soon catches this eighteen feet long marlin that many fisherman might never see in their whole lifetime. But not soon after he catches the marlin, it gets completely eaten by sharks. This back and forth change from unlucky to lucky then back to unlucky is just plain ironic.
There are many instances of irony in the short story "One's a Heifer" by Sinclair
Irony is probably one of the most used literary devices in this book and is used throughout. One example of when the author uses Irony is on page 143 when he writes, "It's the teachers, they're the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other. The game is everything. Win win win. It amounts to nothing.... deciding whether we're good enough or not." This shows irony because as a reader you know the teachers are trying to help the kids and train them. But the kids in the story believe that the teachers are actually trying to hurt them. This is ironic because the teachers are looking at the situation as a whole and are training them to fight the buggers not hurt them, they want the kids around to fight the buggers so they have to put them through these difficult situations. So by using irony the author keeps the reader entertained.
Dramatic irony is used through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s return. His death had brought her such great sorrow but upon his return she died. Her death then created sorrier bringing in the irony of the beginning of the story where it was said that Mrs. Mallard’s heart was bad and she was tried not to be stressed.
Firstly, situational irony in this passage can be tricky to find, but yet obvious once it's brought to your attention. The first example of situational irony is when Montresor talks with Fortunato at the party. There was no doubt that Montresor did not
Hurston was very clear about here point of irony, especially by the ending. Hurston kept constant the folk lore style of story telling, by keeping a moral to the story. Many of the stories aspects in moral were shown indistinctively. There were not many hidden messages, Hurston made the story clear to let us easily grasp the moral. There were fore-telling of the end through out the story, such as in the 1st paragraph Pg.
The first instance of irony used in the story is when the two enemies become friends while trapped in the wilderness together. Ulrich von Gradwitz, “[changes] [his] mind,” and then offers to treat his enemy, Georg Znaeym, “as though [he] were [Ulrich’s] guest” (4). Throughout the short story, Georg and Ulrich go from being people who hate each other because of an ancient rivalry, to
For example, in the beginning of the story, the narrator starts by talking about Mrs. Freeman. “Besides the neutral expressions that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings” (433). The irony in this first line is that she is a “Freeman,” yet only has three different expressions. Another example of an irony that is easily noticeable is when Mrs. Hopewell considered Manley Pointer as “good country people.” “He was just good country people, you know” (441). The irony in this line is that in the end, Manley Pointer, whom is supposedly is “good country people,” ends up being a thief who steals Hulga’s prosthetic leg and runs and not only steals, but admits that he is not a Christian, making the line, “good country people,” a dramatic irony. However, one of the most ironic characters in the story is Hulga herself as she understands little of herself, regardless of the high education she holds in philosophy. For example, Hulga imagines that Pointer is easily seduced. “During the night she had imagined that she seduced him” (442). Yet, when they kissed, she was the one who was seduced and having the “extra surge of adrenaline… that enables one to carry a packed trunk out of a burning house…”
all of these works, irony plays an important role in the plot of the story.
There are so many examples of situational irony that is clear throughout these stories Mr. Mallard being dead, Mama finally realizes that Maggie deserves the quilts because she understands her heritage better than Dee, Mathilde finding out she worked her whole life for nothing, and when Mr. Graves tells Tessie that Eva draws with her husband's family, Tessie is angry. Dramatic irony is everywhere as well. Louise dies from the shock of seeing her husband who is supposed to be dead and when Dee never wanted anything to do with her heritage until somebody was impressed by it.
In the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe uses two types of irony, dramatic and verbal. Dramatic irony is when the reader perceives something that a character in the story does not. Poe uses this type of irony in the character Fortunato. Verbal irony is when the character says one thing and means something else. This type of irony can be recognized in the statements that the characters, Fortunato and Montresor, say to one another.
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado” has a plot of one man, named Montresor, trying to enact revenge on another man, named Fortunato. After Fortunato makes one too many joking insults, Montresor tries to lure Fortunato back to his house by asking him for his expert opinion on a bottle of fine sherry. Once in his home, Montresor traps Fortunato in his wine vaults and leaves him to die. Throughout the story there are many account of irony between Montresor and Fortunato. In his take of “The Cask of Amontillado,” Joseph Kishel believes that Montresor celebrates his defeat of Fortunato by telling “the story to a presumably appreciative listener, someone capable of relishing its many ironies.” Kishel is right to assume that it takes a special someone to be able to see everything that is happening in this story. Even though each occurrence of irony is subtle and unnoticeable to Fortunato, to a reader it is powerful and enlightening about the events to come. For instance, examples of perfect verbal irony are when Montresor refers to Fortunato as a friend and worries for h...
Throughout the whole short story “The Story of an Hour” the reader sees’ irony but the best usage of irony occurs toward the end of the story in the last few paragraphs. As the reader reads the story they notice that Mrs. Mallard’s husband Brently Mallard died in a railroad disaster. The reader also finds out that Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble, and great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. (157) There ar...
The irony is also an example of showing character appeal. He is showing his attitude toward the society. As the reader reads his humorous and satirical essay, the reader would notice that there is irony everywhere. One example is when the Mark Twain discussed on page 7 paragraph 3 “Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers and sometimes to others.” (7). Even though he is telling the youth to respect your superiors. He also tells the youth that if they are ever offended or think you were offended, hit them with a brick. With that said how is the youth supposed to respect their superiors? Also, he mentions that in paragraph 3 “yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the times has gone by for such things,” (7) but he says hit people with bricks. Another example of irony is on page 7 paragraph 5 “you want to be very careful about lying,” (7) but he doesn’t tell the youth not to lie at all. Unlike most elderly people if they were giving advice. Which is very ironic how he is trying to let the youth know that it is appropriate to lie, but don’t get caught. Also, this is what brings me back to the quote “truth is mighty and will prevail.” If the youth are good liars, would this quote be truth? Can the truth over power a lie? That is what Mark Twain is trying to say, with good practice how would you ever get caught? He also refers to the lying
Verbal irony is showcased when the king is characterized as “semi-barbaric,” in which he was both cruel and civilized, when there is a fine line between each adjective. Being semi-barbaric illustrates, “This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married.” (4) Someone who is barbaric and completely brutal would not set up a justice system where the accused also had the chance of being able to experience praise, as so would be likewise for someone who was civilized. An example of situational irony in the story is when the princess chooses the courier's fate. “The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door.” (8) The audience would not expect for two people who love each other very much, to question whether or not they would rather see them die or be with someone else, the entire product of this was solely because of jealousy, and the unexpectantly of the princess debating the courtier’s fate. All endings of fairy tales usually sum up the entire story, but what Stockton did was remarkable, and ended in being completely ironic in which it created a bundle of different possibilities through the reader’s mind. This
In general, the discrepancy between appearances and reality is ironic. Irony is encountered throughout our daily activities and comes in many forms; verbal, situational. and the cosmic. Verbal irony is the most familiar kind, this occurs when we understand that.