Preview

Essay On Irony In Addie's And Jewel

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2900 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Irony In Addie's And Jewel
Besides the symbolism in the story, the types of irony used, situational and dramatic irony help emphasize the image of a family dealing with each other while dealing with the phase of death. The family relations as well as the country environment are expressed through these types of irony. They often occur as while the book does deal with serious issues, the family dynamic is a big part of the novel and the people around them get involved with them.
The situational irony in the story involves having the character that was most loved by Addie also be the least loved by the rest of the family because of that. Addie’s and Jewel’s relationship was more emotional as Jewel acted out, yet was still cared for and loved for the most by Addie. He seemed
…show more content…
As the title suggests, the story will have to do with a death in the plot, which was Addie’s, the mother and wife of the family the novel revolves around. The title foreshadows what the story will be about. With the first person point of view in the title, it also suggests that the story might be told from the point of view of the person who is dying. While that person is dying, the person reflects what is happening around before he/she goes. However, the meaning of the title does indeed change once having read the story. While the title does stick to its plot of dealing with a death, the story is not told by Addie’s perspective. She does have a small part where it is from her point of view, but the novel is mostly told from the different perspectives of her family as they deal with her death and planning her burial. Looking back to the title, the meaning changed to not being about how Addie’s perspective before her death, but rather what she sees her family do before she dies and after she dies. She looks at how separated her family seemed separated when she was alive and even when she was dying. However, once she died, her family is able to change their ways and become closer as they deal with her death and funeral. As she dies, her family is able to reach out for each other and do something they didn’t do when she was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Pexman, P. M., & Olineck, K. M. (2002). Understanding Irony : How Do Stereotypes Cue Speaker Intent? Journal of Language and Social Psychology , 245-274. [Online]. Retrieved at: www.jls.sagepub.com [November 23rd 2011].…

    • 15087 Words
    • 61 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Chapter 26 of Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he explains that any great literary work is dripping with irony. At first glance, a reader may not see the it, but a closer look at a book like Kate Chopin’s The Awakening will make a reader snicker at all the irony that comes to light. In The Awakening, the relationship between protagonist, Edna, and her husband is ironic. As Edna is approaching, sunburned, he looks at his wife “as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage” (Chopin, 7). Mr. Pontellier feels as though he owns his wife, but throughout the book she ignores his opinions, has affairs, and eventually leaves him. The relationship with her husband is not the only ironic one Edna has; she has a love hate relationship with her children. Trying to appease her “mother woman” friend, Adele, Edna says, “I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin, 80). However, Edna’s death was very selfish because instead of saving her children, she took away their mother. Edna’s death was Chopin’s great irony in The Awakening. At the end of the book, Edna wades, into the sea, purposefully, until “it [is] too late; the shore [is] far behind her, and her strength [is] gone” (Chopin, 190). Edna’s great awakening, her realization of freedom and self, leads to her suicide. Once a reader is trained to look for irony, she will never stop seeing it, adding depth and humor to the reading…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The first example of irony is one that you do not understand until closer to the end of the novel. This is when Baba and Amir flee to America. Baba and Amir left a very luxurious life to go to a foreign country for safety. When Baba and Amir arrive in San Francisco California it is almost a completely different world compared to their small town, Kabul. They move into a tiny two bedroom rundown apartment and drive an old, diminished car that has seen its better days. The major change for the duo is Baba’s job. Baba left a successful carpet importing company that he owned and operated. As well as being well know and well respected in his town. He sacrificed all of his success for a job as a “ day manager at the gas station”(p.137).. Baba and Amir also attends, as well as…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In many literary works, there are methods that authors use to make a story better. In The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, dramatic irony is the driving method. Dramatic irony is something in which characters do not know something, but the reader or audience knows what the true reality is. According to some researchers, “A staple of Elizabethan and Shakespearean drama was dramatic irony” (Halio 25). Furthermore some researchers also belive that dramatic irony is very prominent in the play, “ One of the more prominent literary devices in the play is irony” (Sauer 673). Romeo and Juliet, and also their friends and families face a lot of instances of dramatic irony in the story. Dramatic irony creates suspense and adds to the conflict that exists between the Capulets and the Montagues in Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet occurs when Juliet and Romeo fall in love with each other at first sight, when Romeo’s friends don’t know that Romeo and Juliet have fallen in love with each other, and when Lady Capulet thinks that Juliet is crying about Paris, not Romeo.…

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    helpless by barbara gowdy

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Dramatic irony was used a lot throughout the novel. This created suspense and kept the reader engaged. For example on (pg. 164) it said…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ethan from Essay - Irony

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The novel Ethan From by Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan From and the tragedy he faces in his life. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between and among Ethan, his wife, and his wife’s cousin, with whom he is in love. Wharton uses different literary devices to develop the plot, including irony as one of the most effective. The use of irony in the novel, especially in the climatic sledding scene, greatly adds to the development of the tragedy.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Irony, in literature can be anything from sarcasm to a shocking plot twist that can be inconvenient to the characters toward the end. A type of irony is situational which is where something very unexpected shows up at the last minute making the outcome of the story completely different then you expected. Such as the one in Lord of the Flies that effects one special character named Simon, and really almost all the characters.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dramatic irony is a literary technique that occurs when an event happens in the story that the audience understands, but the story’s characters cannot grasp. William Shakespeare uses this device throughout a numerous amount of his plays, whether it be a comedy or tragedy. This particular element, in Shakespearian tragedies, is used in order to add a tragic element of not knowing to the story. It is also used to engage the audience and to help reveal the tragic flaw that evidently leads to the hero's downfall. In Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, dramatic irony is a key piece to the stories unveiling of the major plot. It occurs many times throughout the play and all have an essential purpose.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many authors use irony to impact the story in different ways. Sometimes the author makes the tone very pleasant and dreamy, like every thing is good and ok, when all of the sudden the story is flipped completely, changing the whole outcome of the story. Irony can also be used in a much more subtle way, for example it doesn't change the entire story, it just makes the reader think about what just happened a second time.…

    • 646 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short stories “Young Goodman Brown”, by Nathanial Hawthorne, and “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allen Poe, use dramatic irony more than any other type of irony. They both use symbols, imagery, and foreshadowing to connect to mostly dramatic irony that reveals to characters in the stories having evil intentions. However, these literary devices and ironic situations also lead to different items in each short story.…

    • 234 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    all of these works, irony plays an important role in the plot of the story.…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Irony in crucible

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The situational irony is a contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually does happen. The example of situational irony is when Reverend Hale told John to say the Ten Commandments and John forgot the last one, which just so happened to be the one he broke, which was adultery. Elizabeth was the one to remind him that adultery was the one he forgot. The situational irony there is that John has literally forgotten that one.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cask of Amontillado

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    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.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great writing can move readers to tears and the use of sympathy and sentiment helps cause this response. Sympathy and sentiment is used through narrative language to appeal to emotions. Irony is one way to draw out sympathy and sentiment by collapsing feelings into an intellectual, narrative, and linguistic control. Irony can be angry self-reflexive and is the end point for sympathy and sentiment in the 20th and 21st centuries as seen in The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow. The angry self-reflexive irony can be observed by the many powerful “voices” and narrative intensities in The Book of Daniel. The story follows Daniel Isaacson and the revisiting, in flashbacks, of major events that occurred in his life between a first-person and a third-person…

    • 144 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucibles; Irony

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The main example of irony would probably be how the town seems and acts to be like a group of friends and a tight-knit community, but by the end of the play, the town has turned against each other and it turns into a question of morality how everything flips upside-down. The society that this town has thrived and lived in, turn’s bad, when lies are thrown around and the wrong people realize how easy power can be achieved. The entire play is full of verbal and dramatic irony because in retrospect, every ounce of the trials, are indeed ironic.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays