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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
Part 4: Uncle Pio
Explanation and Analysis—Doña Maria and Uncle Pio:
In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Wilder uses dramatic irony to communicate the literary fame that Doña Maria's letters will attain after her death. In one of her many letters to her daughter, Doña Clara, Doña Maria references Uncle Pio's humorous personality, writing that:
If he weren’t so disreputable I should make him my secretary. He could write all my letters for me and generations would rise up and call me witty.
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Part 5: Perhaps an Intention
Explanation and Analysis—Brother Juniper's Quest:
Brother Juniper is a Catholic missionary whose greatest desire is to scientifically prove the existence of God. After the bridge collapse, he investigates the lives of the five victims in order to uncover some divine logic in their deaths. In doing so, Brother Juniper is attempting to support Catholic doctrine through logos. In fact, he says explicitly that he's trying to appeal to people's sense of logic or rationality, remarking that "it was high time for theology to take its place among the exact sciences." However, in one of the The Bridge of San Luis Rey's central ironies, all of Brother Juniper's experiments fail completely.
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