Irony is a form of linguistic ambiguity achieved through textual‚ grammatical‚ and textual manipulation. Defined simply‚ irony is “the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite‚ typically for humorous or emphatic effect” (OED Online). Seeing as this is clearly a violation of Quality‚ one of Grice’s maxims‚ it can be presumed that in most cases of irony speakers tend to violate one or some of Grice’s four maxims underneath the Cooperative Principle: Quantity
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Oedipus the King‚ written by Sophocles‚ has a central theme of “one cannot escape their fate.” This theme is created using elements of dramatic irony‚ including diction‚ dialogue‚ and situational irony. This play is a Greek tragedy and it means the audience is already somewhat familiar with the main characters and the plot. The advance knowledge the audience has about what happens is known as dramatic irony. Dramatic irony in Oedipus the King affects the theme of “one cannot escape their fate” because
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In “The Tell-Tale Heart‚” irony occurs throughout the story. For example‚ irony occurs when the old man locks himself in his home to escape evil only to be killed by someone within. Poe states‚ “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters had been close fastened‚ through fear of robbers)…” (524). By looking at this quotation‚ we can see that the old man feared being robbed‚ so he placed shutters on all the doors to be safe and to keep thieves from stealing his gold and
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Both “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” have plots that depend in large measure on the use of situational irony to create a surprise ending. “The Necklace” tells the story of Madame Mathilde Loise‚ a lowly clerk’s wife‚ who‚ in an effort to appear more debonaire than she is‚ borrows expensive jewels from Madame Jeanne Forestier‚ a wealthy friend. After the inevitable loss of the jewels‚ Madame Loisel and her husband secretly replace the jewels. Years later‚ Madame Loise‚ now impoverished
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develop this theme of blind people being able to see‚ and those who can see are blind‚ Raymond Carver uses different rhetorical devices such as simple diction and irony. The narrator of the story lacks deep thought on different subjects; however‚ as for the blind man he puts in extra thought into life. Although he cannot see‚ Robert has honed his senses to have a knack to interrupt each situation as it arises. Never the less‚ the relationship between the two main characters sets up an interesting
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Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Probably the greatest on is "The Pardoner’s Tale". A greedy Pardoner who preaches to feed his own desires tells "The Pardoner’s Tale". This story contains excellent examples of verbal‚ situational‚ and dramatic irony. Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different. He tells the other pilgrims that his sermons reflect how money is the root of all evils‚ "radix malorum est cupiditas." He actually preaches against
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The most important literary term that is used most often out of all of the stories is situational irony. Situational irony is when the opposite of what one expects to happen occurs. The situational irony was all about Madame Forestier’s necklace that Madame Loisel lost. At the end of the story‚ Madame Loisel‚ who despised hard work and everything in the world that is not glamorous‚ finds out that she had given up her life to replace her friends necklace that she eventually discovers is only a fake
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The primary issue that Old Major has with the principle of working for man is that the animals do the work for no benefit‚ while Mr. Jones lives a life of excess. Old major is disgruntled by the fact that the man barks orders at his animals‚ and the animals remain malnourished and neglected even though they do the bulk of the man’s work. Soon after Napoleon and Snowball seize control of Animal Farm‚ as the animals work tenaciously in the fields‚ the pigs “…did not actually work‚ but directed and
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died from was not joy. In The Story of an Hour I found two types of irony‚ situational irony and dramatic irony. In this essay I will discuss these two types of irony‚
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Junior‚ that have known each other for a very long time. Senior has had a very successful life and has a lot of family that he is not very fond of while Junior has had a very fulfilling and happy life. Senior wants to die because he believes he has no more life left to live. Junior is the exact opposite from Senior and loves life. Salmon Rushdie wrote this story portraying Junior and senior as death and life. Rushdie uses symbolism and irony to show how life can be taken away so quickly and how precious
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