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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 Blood Meridian
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Ironic Tabernacling:
After Webster asserts that he does not want to be drawn in the Judge's book, the Judge makes a mysterious and ironic claim regarding the intertwining of all people:
The judge smiled. Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world.
Related Themes:
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Mystery and Irony:
The Judge makes a paradoxical claim about mystery and people's desire to be told mysteries as he orates around a fire, which the ex-priest Tobin rightfully notices is ironic:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There is no mystery to it, he said.... Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery. He rose and moved away into the darkness beyond the fire. Aye, said the expriest watching, his pipe cold in his teeth. And no mystery. As if he were no mystery himself, the bloody old hoodwinker.
Related Themes:
Chapter 22
Explanation and Analysis—Speak with the Dead?:
Chapter 22 ends with the kid attempting to help an old woman, but ironically she was dead the whole time:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He spoke to her in a low voice. He told her that he was an American and that he was a long way from the country of his birth and that he had no family and that he had traveled much and seen many things and had been at war and endured hardships. He told her that he would convey her to a safe place, some party of her countrypeople who would welcome her and that she should join them for he could not leave her in this place or she would surely die.... She was just a dried shell and she had been dead in that place for years.
Related Themes:
