How Does Asimov Use Situational Irony In Robot

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A world that consists of the machine and the living working side by side. Will it end in destruction of mankind, such as the terminator films, or end in a perfect working society. i, Robot is a novel wrote by Isaac Asimov in which Irony is used as a literary device to help develop the book. In i, Robot Isaac Asimov uses verbal, dramatic, and situational irony. To start off, Asimov uses verbal irony throughout the book. When the Westons are touring a factory, on how robots are made, they find Robbie. Mrs Weston says, “You engineered this, didn’t you?” to her husband (Asimov, 27). Technically Mr. Weston didn’t engineer anything. He simply arranged for them to find robbie. Furthermore, a mind reading robot, named Herbie, is discovered. While …show more content…

The most noticeable example of this would have been the ending of the novel itself. Since the novel is about humans and robots, coexisting together, the prediction of the book is going to be that it ends with robots taking over. Similar to any other movie or book that involves robots and the human race. Instead of the book ending in a takeover of the robots, it ends with the discovery that robots are actually working to increase and direct human progress as a whole. Another example would be when Donovan and Powell are on Solar Station five testing and examining a new robot. This new robot is supposedly supposed to be able to run everything on its own. The robot takes full control of the station while an electrical storm is coming, that will mess up the electrical beam. Donovan and Powell can’t get to the controls. It is suspected that if they can’t get to controls that the storm will hit the beam and destroy earth. Instead the robot does his job keeping everything in shape (Asimov, 76-78). A final example of situational irony would when Quinn accuses Stephen Byerley of being a robot. There were many steps to try to prove this accusation, but a definate answer was never proven. It was expected to find out whether he was a robot or not (Asimov,

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