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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
Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Motivational Photographs:
The final scene of the story—in which the doctor hangs motivational photos of healed injuries next to the hospital’s rehabilitation machines—contains a few layers of situational irony, as seen in the following passage:
When [the major] came back, there were large framed photographs around the wall, of all sorts of wounds before and after they had been cured by the machines. In front of the machine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that were completely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always understood we were the first to use the machines. The photographs did not make much difference to the major because he only looked out of the window.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—“Interested” Soldiers:
The narrator describes his (and other soldiers’) experience of showing up to the hospital for rehabilitation therapy with verbal irony, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.
Related Themes:
