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Unreliable Narrator
Definition of Verbal Irony
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging outside and someone remarks "what... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean... read full definition
Key Examples in Lord Jim
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Jim's Father:
Early on in the novel, when describing to readers the relationship between Jim and his father, Marlow uses a hyperbole, as seen in the following passage:
“I can’t tell you whether Jim knew he was especially ‘fancied,’ but the tone of his references to ‘my Dad’ was calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world […] ‘He has seen it all in the home papers by this time,’ said Jim. ‘I can never face the poor old chap’.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 23
Explanation and Analysis—Marlow's Racism:
When Marlow and Jim are on their way to drop Jim off in Patusan, Marlow describes the characteristics of one of the ship’s crew members using racist hyperbolic language and verbal irony, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“[H]er master, a dapper little half-caste of forty or so, in a blue flannel suit, with lively eyes, his round face the colour of lemon-peel, and with a thin little black moustache drooping on each side of his thick, dark lips, came forward smirking […] His flowing English seemed to be derived from a dictionary compiled by a lunatic.”
Related Themes:
