Previous
Imagery
Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Key Examples in Absalom, Absalom!
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—A Thousand Homicides :
When Mr. Compson hands Quentin a letter, written from Charles Bon to Judith Sutpen, he uses a metaphor and hyperbole when comparing those who lived in the 19th century to those in the present day:
Yes, for them: of that day and time, of a dead time; people too as we are and victims too as we are, but victims of a different circumstance [...] not dwarfed and involved but distinct, uncomplex who had the gift of loving once or dying once instead of being diffused and scattered creatures drawn blindly limb from limb from a grab bag and assembled, author and victim too of a thousand homicides and a thousand copulations and divorcements. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps any more light than this would be too much for it.”
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Sutpen's Design :
In a scene marked by situational irony, Quentin narrates a conversation between his grandfather General Compson and Thomas Sutpen, in which Sutpen attempted to defend his decision to abandon his first wife and child:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He could have simply deserted her, could have taken his hat and walked out, but he did not: and that he had what Grandfather would have to admit was a good and valid claim [...] while there had been not only reservation but actual misrepresentation on their part and misrepresentation of such a crass nature as to have not only voided and frustrated without his knowing it the central motivation of his entire design, but would have made an ironic delusion of all that he had suffered and endured in the past [...]
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Brothers :
In a passage saturated with dramatic irony, Shreve and Quentin imagine a past conversation between Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘If I had a brother, I wouldn’t want him to be a younger brother’ and he: ‘Ah?’ and the youth: ‘No. I would want him to be older than me’ and he: ‘No son of a landed father wants an older brother’ and the youth: ‘Yes. I do’, looking straight at the other, the esoteric, the sybarite, standing (the youth) now, erect, thin (because he was young), his face scarlet but his head high and his eyes steady: ‘Yes. And I would want him to be just like you’ and he: ‘Is that so?
