For the Love of Ones Country What would you do for love? Would you break up a marriage or assassinate an Archduke? In the short story “IND AFF” by Fay Weldon the narrator must make a choice on whether or not to continue her love affair while examining the Princip’s murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. The story is set in Sarajevo in Bosnia, Yugoslavia where the assassination took place. Through irony, symbolism and setting, Weldon uses the parallel between the narrator and Pincip to show that seemingly inconsequential actions of an individual can have great consequences. Weldon’s story is packed with irony. The author uses situational irony when the narrator says “He was supervising my thesis on varying concepts of morality …show more content…
and duty in the early Greek states as evidenced in their poetry and drama”(Weldon 173) when in reality she is having trouble determining her own morality because she is having an affair Peter, a married man. It is also ironic that Peter, her lover, is supervising her thesis when he is participating in the affair too. Weldon also uses verbal irony to show the narrators realization that she did not truly love Peter. “What are you thinking of?” Professor Piper asked me. He liked to be in my head. “How much I love you,” I said automatically, and I was finally aware of how much I lied.” (Weldon 177) This point in the story is pivotal; she knows her response was almost sarcastic; she finally comes to her senses that she does not love him anymore. That is also why she calls him Professor Piper instead of Peter, the man she loved. Another instance of verbal irony is the repetition of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s wife in the beginning and the end. The narrator says “(Don’t forget his wife: everyone forgets his wife, the archduchess.)”(Weldon 173) When she mentions the Archduchess, she is talking about Peter’s actual wife. This also illustrates the parallel Weldon uses with Princip and the narrator. She brings up the wife multiple times to reiterate that she is also affected by their love affair. In addition to situational and verbal irony, Weldon also uses symbolism to express the narrator’s actions and their affects.
Peter and the narrator “come all this way”(Weldon 173) to see the footprints of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his wife and the assassin Princip. When standing in the rain Peter can only see the two puddles, however the narrator “shivered for his disappointment”(Weldon 173) because she could see footprints in spite of Peter’s complaint. In this literary symbol the footprints symbolize their relationship and the consequences of their affair. The narrator can see all the effects and the possible consequences of their relationship while Peter is blind to them. Another literary symbol is their room at Hotel Europa. It is described as “small and dark and looked out into the well of the building- a punishment room if ever there was one.”(Weldon 176) The hotel room symbolizes the guilt and the retribution for having an affair with …show more content…
Peter. The most significant literary symbol is that of the Princip assassinating the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife and “by his action, as everyone knows, he lit a spark which fired the timber which caused World War I.”(Weldon 173) His choice to kill the Archduke and his wife out of his inordinate affection for his country symbolizes the narrator’s choice to either keep the affair going. If she stays with Peter, she will ruin his marriage and change the life of Peter’s wife forever, the same way the Princip took the shot that inadvertently started World War I and left 40 million people dead. At the end the narrator says: The first one missed, the second one got the wife (never forget his wife), and the third got the archduke and a whole generation, and their children, and their children’s children and on and on forever. (Weldon 178) This is a symbol of what her own choices could have done; her affair affects the wife and many other unforeseen people and moments. A major literary device Weldon uses in “Ind Aff” is setting.
The narrator and her lover Peter travel to Sarajevo in Bosnia, Yugoslavia for a holiday to make sure what they have is the real thing. This is the same city where Princip shot the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduchess, igniting the timber that started World War I. By setting the story in this same historic city, Weldon is drawing parallels between the Princip’s situation and the narrator’s. The narrator is struggling between what is moral and how her actions are going to affect everyone and everything around her. Similarly the Princip also had to decide whether or not to shoot the Archduke. On the other hand, Princip does decide to shoot the Archduke and Archduchess for the love of his country and the results are spending the rest of his life in prison. Through the setting, Weldon places the narrator in geologically in the same place and in the same mindset as Princip makes this huge
decision. Accompanying the physical location of Sarajevo, Weldon also uses the weather to symbolize the big picture. With the line “It rained in Sarajevo, and we had expected fine weather,” the narrator had expected the relationship to get better during their vacation but it rained. (Weldon 173) Weldon uses the rain to show the results of the affair, “it was raining on his wife, too, back in Cambridge” this shows that the affects of the affair are not isolated to the narrator and Peter but that it is affecting his wife also. (Weldon 173) The rain also represents their relationship, And that was how I feel out of love with my professor, in Sarajevo, a city to which I am grateful to this day, though I never go to see much of it, because of the rain. (Weldon 178) Her relationship with Peter her professor blinded her from the city and reality. All in all, Weldon shows the narrators struggle through irony, symbolization and setting. In the end of “Ind Aff” the narrator does make the decision to end the relationship with Peter. She knows that with just this one action of having this affair could potentially cause much more unintended destruction. She says “If he’d just hung on a bit, there in Sarajevo, that June day, he might have come to his senses” because the narrator herself has a moment of clarity when she realizes that the relationship must end before anything else is disturbed. (Weldon 178)
Written by Katherine Holubitsky, Tweaked is a novel that shows the readers how dangerous drugs are to both the user and their peers. With the two year meth addiction, Chase continues to financially and emotionally drain out his family however; the problems becomes worse when Chase escapes from his dealer's house. Richard Cross, the man Chase attacked, died and as a result, Chase is charged with murder. His mother secretly proceeds to monetarily support Chase but when she was caught, the bond between the family members exacerbated. Time elapsed and Chase was finally caught when stealing a car however, he dies shortly after and overdose and becomes brain dead. Tweaked shows us the reality of how hazardous drugs can be through the physical
Ayiti, by Roxane Gay, is a collection of fifteen short narratives about Haiti and its people, which gives the readers insights into the complex Haitian diaspora experience. The novel seeks to offer a deeper view into Haitian society and covers an array of themes such as the politics of survival, resiliency, and feminist culture in Haiti. Throughout the novel, Gay is highly critical of mainstream media because of how they depict and silo Haiti as a poor and helpless country. Haiti’s historical stance on censorship is well documented, and as a Haitian writer living in America, Gay is successful in giving agency to the voiceless by chronicling the stories of the Haitian diaspora. Ayiti explores stories that explain what it is like to be a Haitian
Throughout the historic course of literature, one story known as “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Cornell has incorporated specific types of irony for multiple differing and fundamental reasons. Situational irony is the first use of ironic elements that will be discussed in regards to the story. Situational irony is defined as “an incongruity that appears between the expectations of something to happen, and what actually happens instead ” (literarydevices.net). The story’s climax offers a unique twist to the plot as it includes an unexpected discovery, ultimately incorporating situational irony into the sequence of events. The story starts out with the introduction of the legendary hunter Bob Rainsford as he is shipwrecked and trapped on a deserted island. While staying on the island, Rainsford is introduced to the eccentric General Zaroff, who is a self proclaimed expert hunter as well. In short, the General turns out to be a sadistic psychopath who forces Rainsford into a game of “cat and mouse”, which causes Rainsford to fight for his life. This state of affair is considered to be situational irony because Zaroff defies the expectations of being a hunter to the audience. This is specifically shown in the text when Rainsford confronts General Zaroff in regards to what he is hunting:
Baker, Joseph E. “Irony in Fiction: ‘All the King’s Men.’” College English. Vol. 9. JSTOR.
There are many instances of irony in the short story "One's a Heifer" by Sinclair
In Harrison Bergeron, the irony author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. uses is very apparent. Irony is a literary technique in which the opposite of what is meant is said or done, usually to a humorous effect. There are three types of irony used in this story; verbal, situational and dramatic. The most humorous use of verbal irony is when the narrator says “Hazel had a perfectly normal intelligence”. This is ironic because Hazel only has a twenty second memory, which is not that
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…”
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.
In another work of Welty’ we are depicted the character of a seemingly kind, charitable young Campfire girl, named Marion, who is sent to an old age home. Yet what we do not know is that Marion has another side to her besides the bright, vibrant young girl that she is. We soon come to see this side of her as she sprint from the old folks home, “ Under the prickly shrub she stopped and quickly, without being seen, retrieved a red apple she had hidden there.” (“A Visit of Charity). The reader now realizes the true conniving ways that Marion withholds in the beginning.
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.
Some literary works exhibit structural irony, in that they show sustained irony. In such works the author, instead of using an occasional verbal irony, introduces a structural feature which serves to sustain a duplicity of meaning. One common device of this sort is the invention of a naïve hero, or else a naïve narrator or spokesman, whose invincible simplicity or obtuseness leads him to persist in putting an interpretation on affairs which the knowing reader—who penetrates to, and shares, the implicit point of view of the authorial presence behind the naïve persona—just as persistently is called on to alter and correct. (Abrams, 90)
Irony is something that seems to directly contradict a precedent set before it, and is seen everywhere in the world, often having dismal consequences, but it also serves to point out that there is something wrong with the current state of affairs. Briony Tallis, a character from Ian McEwan’s Atonement, is also a victim of this type of irony, as her undeveloped system of justice results in a great injustice; however, this injustice serves to improve her understanding of justice as she realizes her wrongdoings and attempts to atone for them meanwhile her life is used by McEwan to send parables to his audience that prove to enrich his novel. The exposition of Briony as a smart, but naive little girl influences her poor judgement, and helps relay
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...
Ismene remains firm and asks to be given the same punishment as her sister (212). Ismene’s love for her sister causes her to change her true ambitions and request a death penalty. Although this request is not fulfilled, Ismene demonstrates exactly how dangerous love can be if it is left uncontrolled.
Thesis: Shirley Jackson’s usage of irony, characters, and plot portray the stories theme of the dangers of unconsciously following tradition.