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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
Book 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—She Beggared Me:
The dramatically ironic motif of "beggaring," or stripping everything from a person, comes up several times in the context of playing games in Great Expectations. When Pip and Estella are asked to play cards to entertain Miss Havisham, this conversation follows:
Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close. [...] "Let me see you play cards with this boy.” “With this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!” I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer – only it seemed so unlikely — “Well? You can break his heart.” “What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest disdain. “Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss.” “Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham [...]
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Silly and Self-Absorbed:
When a character is as pompous and self-interested as Uncle Pumblechook in a Dickens novel, the author is almost always using them to satirize a "type" of character from everyday Victorian life; in this case, a privileged blowhard. When Pip is told that Pumblechook will take him to meet Miss Havisham to "make his fortune," in chapter 8, a scene of the most laughable stuffiness occurs. Pip tells the reader that he was "trussed up" in his "tightest and fearfullest suit" and
Unlock with LitCharts A+delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: “Boy, be for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!”
Related Themes:
