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Definition of Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given situation, and that of the... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a... read full definition
Chapter 17: To Keep It Holy
Explanation and Analysis—What Does It Mean?:
Gene Westover's repressive methods in raising his children left them unaware of many ideas well known to the rest of the world. In one of her first classes at BYU in Chapter 17, Tara reveals her ignorance of one of the most dire events in world history, shocking the rest of the class in a moment of dramatic irony. A professor asks her to read aloud the caption under a photo in a textbook, and she does not know the word "Holocaust":
The professor called on me, and I read the sentence aloud. When I came to the word, I paused.
“I don’t know this word,” I said. “What does it mean?”
There was silence. Not a hush, not a muting of the noise, but utter, almost violent silence. No papers shuffled, no pencils scratched. The professor’s lips tightened.
“Thanks for that,” he said, then returned to his notes.
Tara does not know what the Holocaust was, while all the other students in the room obviously do. This dramatic irony is not at all humorous, as all the students regard the newcomer with "almost violent silence." The rest of the class, and the professor, seem to think that Tara means that she doesn't think the Holocaust is an important or serious event, since it would be unthinkable that she would have somehow never learned about it. Only inflating the irony in the scene, no one in the class is even willing to tell Tara what the Holocaust is. Only after the class does Vanessa, disgusted, inform Tara how her ignorance appeared to the rest of the class. The dramatic irony is a consequence of Tara's unusual upbringing contrasted with the assumptions that the students at a university make about one another's educational background. Here Tara is made into a total outsider, shunned for her lack of education.
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