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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 Civil Disobedience
Irony
Explanation and Analysis—LIke Traveling:
Writing of his one-night stay in a local jail after refusing to pay his taxes in protest of the government of the United States, Thoreau uses a simile that, ironically, compares imprisonment in jail to distant travel:
It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the middle ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me [...] It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Rich Man:
In his critique of the rich, Thoreau uses a series of paradoxes that suggest that those who are in possession of great wealth actually have less than the poor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But the rich man [...] is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are increased.
Related Themes:
