Situational Irony
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens

David Copperfield: Situational Irony 2 key examples

Chapter 11: I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don't Like It
Explanation and Analysis—Prison Comforts:

Dickens uses situational irony to critique the practice of imprisoning debtors, something that happened to his own father. For example, in Chapter 11, the narrator writes of the Micawbers:

[...] they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a long while out of it.

Chapter 39: Wickfield and Heep
Explanation and Analysis—Uriah's "Apology":

In Chapter 39, Uriah upsets Mr. Wickfield and claims that he is entitled to marry Agnes due to his upward mobility. In the morning he claims to have smoothed things over with Mr. Wickfield while also using a metaphor to suggest that he has already made sexual advances toward Agnes:

I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology.

‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Uriah. ‘When a person’s umble, you know, what’s an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,’ with a jerk, ‘you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?’

‘I suppose I have,’ I replied.

‘I did that last night,’ said Uriah; ‘but it’ll ripen yet! It only wants attending to. I can wait!’

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