Preview

How Is Irony Used In Things Fall Apart

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
269 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Is Irony Used In Things Fall Apart
Think about the last time you told someone a story, maybe about something that happened to you. What kinds of things did you do to make sure they got the full effect? Maybe you used imagery to help them picture what happened. Or maybe you used sarcasm, a form of irony, to emphasize a point. These are examples of literary devices. Literary devices are tools that help convey the author's ideas and points, and just as you use them in your stories, authors use them in their novels. One literary device Achebe uses is irony. Irony is when what happens or what is said is the opposite of what you would have expected or are thinking. We can see an example of tragic irony in Okonkwo's suicide at the end of Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo is a proud and important

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the short stories, The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty and The Censors by Luisa Valenzuela, the literary device, irony, was used to create tension and suspense. There are three different types of irony, situational irony, dramatic irony and verbal irony. Situational irony is used when something that wasn’t presumed and is contrasting to what was expected happens. An example might be when a thief’s house was robbed. Another type of irony is dramatic irony. It is used when the audience knows something but the characters don’t. The last type of irony is verbal irony, which is usually simply sarcasm. An example might be saying “Well, this is a nice day” during a…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Another type of irony that authors use is dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than the characters. The first example of dramatic irony…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Numerous artists, such as William Shakespeare and Richard Connell, used irony to entertain and engage their audiences. In the well-renown Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare used irony and foreshadow to strategize the story line of the tragedy. Various successful authors and directors use irony to make their story-line more appealing to their audience. In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game”, Richard Connell uses the three types of irony: dramatic, verbal and situational to the engage readers and keep the theme and story-line stimulated.…

    • 84 Words
    • 1 Page
    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

    Irony is a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy. In the story, The Pedestrian Bradbury uses irony to write the whole story. Mr. Mead wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just walking and yet he was arrested. Another example of irony is in the story Fahrenheit 451 when he explains the fireman’s theory. “Plant the books, turn in the alarm, and see the fireman’s houses burn, is that what you mean?” (85). The wrong is so obvious in both of these examples but things that are wrong still happen and irony is used to make us see these wrongs…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jessie Armstrong

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages

    (3) Irony is the use of words to express a meaning that is contradictory of its literal meaning. Irony is important in short stories because it helps the writer and audience has a shared understanding. The author can grab the audience’s attention by confusing them through Irony.…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Irony is when there is a situation that is strange because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected. A good example of the word ironic was when New England was settled. Two good examples of the irony during the settlement of New England were the religious and political repressions.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    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.…

    • 2900 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Mark Flanagan of About.com, “Dramatic irony is when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters. This is the result of the reader having a greater knowledge than the characters themselves.” For instance, in Chapter VIII, Reverend John Wilson, Boston’s senior clergyman, sat on an arm-chair and surveyed Pearl’s weirdly ethereal qualities, then proceeded to ask Pearl if she knew who her parents were, as stated in this quote, ““Pearl,” said he, with great solemnity, “thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?” (96) This event developed subsequent to Hester’s visit in Governor Bellingham’s garden. There, she privately requested Reverend Dimmesdale’s aid in supporting that the governor does not take Pearl away. This is an example of dramatic irony because the reader knows that Dimmesdale and Hester are partners in sin, but the characters do not. Dramatic irony benefits the reader in that it satisfies their anticipation because of what they already know and they possess a greater idea of what is to happen next. Hawthorne’s use of this type of irony really generated a thrust of motivation to keep the reader more…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Irony and surprise are common literary devices authors use to communicate their ideas when writing literary works. Irony allows the writer to suggest an interpretation that is different from the literal meaning of the words used in the text. The element of surprise allows the writer to manipulate the reader’s expectations and take them somewhere completely different. In the short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flanney O’Connor and Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood, both authors use the element of irony and surprise to engage readers and to develop deeper levels of meaning in their text.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salem is a town that is centered on their religious beliefs. The church is the basis for their morals and ethics, but discovery of the actions of the town’s girls impacts the entire town. Reverend Parris discovers the girls along with Tituba conjuring up spells, singing Barbados songs, and dancing naked. This begins a series of events in The Crucible by Arthur Miller where he uses irony to show that guilt can cause the most upstanding men to act uncharacteristically.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    will persuade him yet,' because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men" (Faulkner #). This exemplifies an example of irony because of how she tried to persuade him to be with her after she…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Short Stories

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Irony can be defined as a statement different from what appears to be true. It is an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (Meyer, 286-287). In a lot of cases, irony is usually used to raise the reader's interest by making the story or poem more unpredictable. In the poem “Suburban” by John Ciardi, the author approaches the reader with humor and irony. When Mrs. Friar phones Mr. Ciardi, saying: “The fact is your dog has just deposited – forgive me – a large repulsive object in my petunias,” can be interpreted as irony, because of the need of all living beings to eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste from our bodies, but the way she was saying it, sounds almost like she has no need to defecation. Mr. Ciardi does not respond the way he would like to out of politeness. He doesn’t even think it was his dog who did it, because his dog is out of town with his son, but yet, he agrees to pick it. There is the irony, again, he does the opposite of what a reader would expect him to do, the opposite of even what he wants to say or do. We could define this poem as a situational irony, which is a situation where there is a contradiction between what is expected to happen and what actually occurs, which is usually connected to a negative view of life. In other words, it is an outcome very different from what was originally expected. As explained in “The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature,” situational irony creates a distinction between realities in order to bring the reader closer to the central meaning of the story or poem. That is a different approach to poetry, meant for people that think poetry as a very boring…

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays