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
Volume 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Lift the Curtain:
Caleb's life is nearly destroyed by the spread of lies and gossip, so it may be surprising to consider that he is himself an unreliable narrator. Godwin plays with the situational irony at the end of Volume 1, Chapter 5, when Caleb interjects his narratorial voice into the story he is telling:
I go on with my tale. I go on to relate those incidents in which my own fate was so mysteriously involved. The temper of Mr Tyrrel, soured with perpetual disappointment, became every day more peevish, arrogant and morose. The reader has seen what it was in the commencement. But every thing has its limits beyond which it can augment no farther. I lift the curtain, and bring forward the last act of the tragedy.
Related Themes:
Volume 1, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—The Law's Purpose:
In Volume 1, Chapter 10, Tyrrel orders his steward to arrest Emily for running away without paying off her debts to him. His justification for the arrest is preposterous, functioning in the novel as verbal irony in support of Godwin's argument for legal reform:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I tell you she does owe me, owes me — eleven hundred pound. — The law justifies it. — What do you think laws were made for? — I do nothing but right, and my rights I will have.
Related Themes:
Volume 3, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Enslavement and Escape:
There is a way to read Caleb's story as an allegory for an enslaved person's pursuit of freedom. In Volume 3, Chapter 1, an instance of dramatic irony during Caleb's prison break is especially reminiscent of certain scenes from the memoirs of formerly enslaved people:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I heard the sound of feet, and presently saw the ordinary turnkey and another pass by the place of my retreat. They were so close to me that, if I had stretched out my hand, I believe I could have caught hold of their clothes without so much as changing my posture. As no part of the overhanging earth intervened between me and them, I could see them entire, though the deepness of the shade rendered me almost completely invisible. I heard them say to each other, in tones of vehement asperity, Curse the rascal! which way can he be gone?
Related Themes:
Volume 3, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Blackstone:
In Volume 3, Chapter 6, Caleb fails to convince a judge that he is not an Irish mail thief. Godwin uses an allusion to criticize the judge's abuse of power and highlight the situational irony of his disinterest in discerning innocent people from guilty:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was of more benefit to his majesty’s government to hang one such fellow as he suspected me to be, than out of misguided tenderness to concern oneself for the good of all the beggars in the nation.
Related Themes:
Volume 3, Postscript
Explanation and Analysis—Rank and Rotten Soil:
In Volume 3, Postscript, Caleb addresses the now-deceased Falkland. He uses a metaphor to lament the situational irony of Falkland's disgraced demise:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Thy intellectual powers were truly sublime, and thy bosom burned with a godlike ambition. But of what use are talents and sentiments in the corrupt wilderness of human society? It is a rank and rotten soil from which every finer shrub draws poison as it grows. All that in a happier field and a purer air would expand into virtue and germinate into general usefulness, is thus converted into henbane and deadly nightshade.
Related Themes:
