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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 4: A Career Which Soon Careered To An End
Explanation and Analysis—A Lively Career:
In Chapter 4, Mr. Melvyn has decided to move his family to Possum Gully and pursue a career in trading stocks. The narrator employs dramatic irony and foreshadowing to underscore the tragic trajectory of this risky and foolish choice. Sybylla tells the reader that:
While Mother, Jane Haizelip, and I found the days long and life slow, Father was enjoying himself immensely. He had embarked upon a lively career—that gambling trade known as dealing in stock. [...] He was crippled with too many Utopian ideas of honesty, and was too soft ever to come off anything but second-best in a deal. He might as well have attempted to make his fortune by scraping a fiddle [...]
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Fifth Commandment:
In Chapter 4 Franklin employs a powerful, verbally ironic allusion to the Fifth Commandment from the Bible, "Honor thy father and thy mother." This irony becomes evident as Sybylla finds herself compelled to accompany her drunken father home late at night:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Coming home, often after midnight, with my drunken father talking maudlin, conceited nonsense beside me, I developed curious ideas on the fifth commandment.
Related Themes:
