How Does Asimov Use Situational Irony In Robot

691 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ironys in fahrenheit 451

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,

Show More
Related

  • Situational Irony In Eleanor Abbott's Invitation To A Murder

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter, situational irony is used an extremity of times. The first example comes from the title of the story. Eleanor Abbott pre-planned for there to be 12 renowned men in the criminal justice system invited to witness the death of her husband! Once they were there, she planned to blame them on his death! This is ironic since these men are busy fighting murder, and here they are about to be blamed for one! The following example comes in when the men come over to the Abbott household.

    Read More

  • Situational Irony In The Maze Runner

    219 Words  | 1 Pages

    For situational irony I choose the novel or movie .”The Maze Runner.” The situational irony that happened in this story was when Alby and Minho try to examine a weird creature.They wanna bring it back to the glade where they live ,but the griever is actually alive and injuries Alby.Which it makes it difficult to go back to go to the glade.This is situational irony,because now they're trapped inside the maze with the griever with one injured person.

    Read More

  • Irony In Maureen Crane Wartski's The Pod

    503 Words  | 2 Pages

    For example, in the beginning of the story, Pete, Jesse’s cousin, was talking about marine life and how he rescued a beached dolphin, but Jesse hated Pete talking about dolphins. He “...tried to block out his cousin’s voice...” (Pg. 19) Later in the story, Pete’s lecture came in handy when Jesse rescued the beached dolphin. Another instance of irony is, that Jesse hated pep talks from people, but then was giving the dolphin pep talk in the end. He told the dolphin, “Bud, you’ve got to save yourself… Nobody going to do it for you. If you give up, you’re finished...” (Pg. 23) This pep talk he gave the dolphin made him realize he needs to do the same. Most ironic things happen when you least expect

    Read More

  • Situational Irony in O’Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief and The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    Situational irony is used in both O’Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief” and “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant but the effect of the techniques on the tone of each story is very different. In O’Henry’s story, the protagonist, Red Chief, is being kidnapped by two criminals, Bill and Sam. There are many ironic events that occur in the story. For example, the reader expects Red Chief to want to go back home to his family but instead, he is having the time of his life. As hard as Bill tries, he cannot even send him home. Bill utters to Sam, “‘I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick’” (6). This is comical because it is using a literary technique known as slapstick comedy. The reader can imagine Bill swinging his leg and kicking Red Chief all the way back to Summit. Another example of situational irony in the story is that the reader would expect that Red Chief to be scared but what is actually happening is that Bill is terrified. While speaking with Sam, Bill complains about Red chief yet again, “‘I’ve stood by you without batting an eye ...

    Read More

  • Irony in "Brave New World"

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, many examples are given throughout the novel that exemplifies all three types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. There are many more examples, like Bernard wanting attention and John’s suicide. His suicide can be an example of irony, with the reader hoping that John (the revolutionist) might succeed, but John taking his own life. Irony plays a huge role in the book, pointing out that no society can be perfect and that some laws are broken by the creators themselves.

    Read More

  • Situational and Dramatic Irony in Story of an Hour, Everyday Use, The Necklace, and The Lottery

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Use of Dramatic, Situational, and Verbal Irony in Shakespeare's Othello

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many examples of situational irony in Othello. One big example that went throughout the story was the triangle of Cassio, Othello, and Iago. Iago wanted Cassio dead, while Othello promoted Cassio to a higher position, and later in the story also wanted to have him killed. What is ironic is the fact that in the end, both Iago and Othello end up dead, while Cassio comes out on top. Another example is the use of the handkerchief.

    Read More

  • Use of Dramatic Irony in Oedipus the King

    406 Words  | 1 Pages

    One example of dramatic irony is when Oedipus is looking for the killer of the king Laius-his father. The irony here is that he is looking for himself because he is the murder of his father. Oedipus knows that he killed someone, but what he does not know is that it was Laius, the one he murder. Oedipus wants to punish the person who killed Laius, but we, the audience know that Oedipus was the one who killed Laius. Also Oedipus married Jocasta without knowing that she is his mother. We, the audience knew that he was Jocasta's son, but he was unaware of that.

    Read More

  • I,Robot vs. Frankenstein

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story is an adaptation of Asimov’s short story which warned about the future and about technology. It takes place in Chicago in 2035 and to this time robots are a part of the everyday life. There is no way one could imagine a life without robotics. The company who develop the robots, U.S.R., is about to bring out the new robots, NS-5. But the business is overshadowed by the suicide of the developer Alfred Lanning in the U.S.R. headquarters. Detective Spooner is convinced that it is a homicide and that the committer only could be a robot. But nobody believes him since there are the three laws of robotics which build a perfect cycle of protection. “1. A robot may ...

    Read More

  • Use Of Situational Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

    314 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, the writer uses irony a lot, such as dramatic irony and situational irony. Firstly, the writer uses many situational ironies. For example, in the story, when the wife “[swings] the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head”, readers do not expect she will kill her husband, and readers just think she will cook the leg of lamb to keep her husband stay in house. Also, after she kills her husband, she thinks “[that] was fine” and feels it “would be a relief”. This is a situational irony because normally, after people kill somebody, they will feel scare, or regret, or try to save the person’s life.

    Read More

  • Issac Asimov's I, Robot

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    Robbie was created as a nursemaid robot by U.S.R (United States Robotics). Robbie was Gloria’s best friend and companion. They had an innocent and sweet relationship. Robbie was her guardian and sort of a pet. Besides Robbie, Gloria didn’t have any real friends and that started to worry her parents, especially her mother.

    Read More

  • I Robot

    1677 Words  | 4 Pages

    Artificial Intelligence, also known as AI, allows a machine to function as if the machine has the capability to think like a human. While we are not expecting any hovering cars anytime soon, artificial intelligence is projected to have a major impact on the labor force and will likely replace about half the workforce in the United States in the decades to come. The research in artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly at an unstoppable rate. So while many people feel threatened by the possibility of a robot taking over their job, computer scientists actually propose that robots would benefit a country’s efficiency of production, allowing individuals to reap the benefits of the robots. For the advantage of all, researchers and analysts have begun to mend the past ideas of human-robot interaction. They have pulled inspiration from literary works of Isaac Asimov whom many saw as the first roboticist ahead of his time, and have also gotten ideas of scholarly research done by expert analysts. These efforts have began to create an idea of a work force where humans and robots work together in harmony, on a daily basis.

    Read More

  • Free Essays on A Doll's House: Irony

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another illustration of irony is the way Nora treats her children as if they were dolls. This is situational irony because Nora is treated like a doll by her husband, and by her father when he was alive. She says "I passed out of Daddy's hands into yours.

    Read More

  • History and Development of Robotics

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    Some would say the attempt to make a robot is an attempt to 'play god' and to recreate man. Others would argue that robots might become so intelligent that they would take over and replace humans. There is no better example of this than the movie Terminator, which begins with a world ruled by machines who are trying to kill the remaining human population. The actual field of robotics however, has produced many products which we take for granted. The clock is a household item that was developed in the beginning stages of machine ...

    Read More

  • How Technology Has Changed Our Life Positively

    684 Words  | 2 Pages

    But later, robots start getting smarter and they take over every aspect of human life, meanwhile, people are forcibly stopped doing stuff by themselves. Finally robots dominated the human race, not in the way of military forces but in lifestyle behaviors. The story was interesting, yet it was also hilarious. Human’s intelligence creates technology, and they are created to serve humans. No matter how smart the technology is, they are still the intelligence of humans.

    Read More

More about How Does Asimov Use Situational Irony In Robot

Open Document