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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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Destiny:
A crucial example of situational irony defines the character of John Marcher. The irony at the heart of Marcher's story is that he believes himself to be destined for "something rare and strange" and spends his entire life waiting for such a destiny. However, while waiting, he wastes his potential and prevents himself from achieving anything. May first alludes to Marcher's fate in Chapter 1:
You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.
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