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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
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Kipple:
Dick's novel is known for popularizing the concept of "kipple," an accumulation of consumer junk that seems to reproduce on its own. In Chapter 8, this motif appears alongside an instance of situational irony:
The scavengers’ building impressed him; large and modern, it held a good number of high-class purely office employees. The deep-pile carpets, the expensive genuine wood desks, reminded him that garbage collecting and trash disposal had, since the war, become one of Earth’s important industries. The entire planet had begun to disintegrate into junk, and to keep the planet habitable for the remaining population the junk had to be hauled away occasionally…or, as Buster Friendly liked to declare, Earth would die under a layer—not of radioactive dust—but of kipple.
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Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Magic Flute:
In Chapter 9, Rick hunts down Luba Luft onstage at the opera house. This scene's extended allusion to Mozart's opera The Magic Flute employs dramatic irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Now Papageno in his fantastic pelt of bird feathers had joined Pamina to sing words which always brought tears to Rick’s eyes, when and if he happened to think about it.
Könnte jeder brave Mann
solche Glöckchen finden,
seine Feinde würden dann
ohne Mühe schwinden.
Well, Rick thought, in real life no such magic bells exist that make your enemy effortlessly disappear. Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died—in his thirties—of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
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Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Lacking Empathy:
In Chapter 11, Rick criticizes Garland for responding flippantly to Phil Resch's impending realization that he is an android. Garland responds with verbal irony that points out a fallacy on which Rick's entire career rests:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“You androids,” Rick said, “don’t exactly cover for each other in times of stress.”
Garland snapped, “I think you’re right; it would seem we lack a specific talent you humans possess. I believe it’s called empathy.”
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Explanation and Analysis—Unsuspecting Android:
In Chapter 11, after Polokov is revealed to be an android, Phil Resch decides that he, Rick, and Inspector Garland all need their humanity tested. He leaves Rick and Garland briefly alone for a scene that involves several layers of dramatic irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“What will tests on the three of us show?” Rick asked.
Garland said, “That damn fool Resch.”
“He actually doesn’t know?”
“He doesn’t know; he doesn’t suspect; he doesn’t have the slightest idea. Otherwise he couldn’t live out a life as a bounty hunter, a human occupation—hardly an android occupation.”
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Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Peaches:
In Chapter 13, John Isidore drives home with precious food and wine to share with Pris. Dick uses imagery to highlight the rare "pleasure" still available to the characters through food, even in the techno-dystopia of the novel:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The smell of peaches and cheese eddied about the car, filling [John's] nose with pleasure.
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Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Intelligent Man:
In Chapter 17, after Rick and Rachael have sex and he decides not to kill her, they listen to the radio in the car. Oscar Scruggs, the man on the radio, speaks in a dialect that Rick disparages with verbal irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The radio said, “—ah jes wan ta tell ya, folks, that ahm sitten hih with my pal Bustuh, an we’re tawkin en havin a real mighty fine time, waitin expectantly as we ah with each tick uh the clock foh what ah understan is the mos important announcement of—” Rick shut the radio off.
“Oscar Scruggs,” he said. “The voice of intelligent man.”
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