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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
Key Examples in No Country for Old Men
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Faith Healer:
In Chapter 1, Chigurh kills a man on the side of the road with his cattle stungun—one of the first murders of its kind readers encounter in the novel. This murder is gruesome, yet McCarthy uses uncharacteristically nonviolent language to describe it, invoking both simile and situational irony to craft the scene:
He placed his hand on the man's head like a faith healer. The pneumatic hiss and click of the plunger sounded like a door closing. The man slid soundlessly to the ground, a round hole in his forehead from which the blood bubbled and ran down into his eyes carrying with it his slowly uncoupling world visible to see.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—No Trace:
In the following excerpt from Chapter 1, Moss pursues the antelope he shot. As he follows the trail of blood, he takes notice of a series of ancient cave drawings along his path. The drawings, he claims, were made by ancient hunters whose presence the austere landscape has long since forgotten. Given subsequent events, the apparent absence of people surrounding Moss is an example of situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The rocks there were etched with pictographs perhaps a thousand years old. The men who drew them hunters like himself. Of them there was no other trace.
At the end of the ridge was a rockslide, a rough trail leading down. Candelilla and scrub catclaw. He sat in the rocks and steadied his elbows on his knees and scanned the country with the binoculars. A mile away on the floodplain sat three vehicles.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Hunter Becomes Hunted:
In Chapter 1, McCarthy introduces Moss to readers as an avid hunter. His name even conjures up thoughts of classic American cowboys, reminiscent of Mossberg & Sons (an American munitions and firearms company). He is a competent man, a highly skilled hunter—and yet, in a situationally ironic turn, he himself is pursued and shot by other humans later on in the chapter:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He was hit in the upper arm by a buckshot and it stung like a hornet. He put his hand over it and dove into the cane, the lead ball half buried in the back of his arm. His left leg kept wanting to give out beneath him and he was having trouble breathing.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Natural Causes:
In the following excerpt from Chapter 3, Sheriff Bell and Wendell investigate the desert crime scene, utilizing verbal irony in their description of one dead man:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The sheriff shook his head. He got down and walked over to where the dead man lay slumped. He walked over the ground, the rifle yoked across his shoulders.
He squatted and studied the grass.
We got another execution here Sheriff?
No, I believe this one's died of natural causes.
Natural causes?
Natural to the line of work he's in.
He aint got a gun.
No.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Broke Television:
In his monologue at the beginning of Chapter 5, Bell discusses a story he read in the newspaper about a young couple who would torture and kill their elderly tenants. This monologue contains a certain amount of verbal irony from Bell, who seems not to believe the tale even as he himself tells it:
Unlock with LitCharts A+What I was sayin the other day about the papers. Here last week they found this couple out in California they would rent out rooms to old people and then kill em and bury em in the yard and cash their social security checks. They'd torture em first, I dont know why. Maybe their television was broke.
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Explanation and Analysis—Truck Load:
In Chapter 5, Sheriff Bell pulls over a trucker who appears to be carting dead bodies from the crime scene out of the desert. Unaware at first that this task has been relegated to the trucker, Sheriff Bell's initial conversation with the man contains a fair amount of verbal irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Have you looked at your load lately?
The driver looked in the mirror. What's the problem, Sheriff? [...]
The man walked back and took a look. One of the tiedowns is worked loose, he said.
He got hold of the loose corner of the tarp and pulled it back up along the bed of the truck over the bodies lying there, each wrapped in blue reinforced plastic sheeting and bound with tape. There were eight of them and they looked like just that. Dead bodies wrapped and taped.
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