In an example of dramatic irony, Hildegarde tells Benjamin during their courtship that she is specifically drawn to him because of his mature age, as seen in the following passage:
“You’re just the romantic age,” she continued—“fifty. Twentyfive is too worldly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is—oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty.”
Fifty seemed to Benjamin a glorious age. He longed passionately to be fifty.
“I’ve always said,” went on Hildegarde, “that I’d rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of than marry a man of thirty and take care of him.”
This is an example of dramatic irony, as both readers and Benjamin know that he is not a 50-year-old man who will continue to become more mature over time, but a 20-year-old man who will continue to become younger over the course of his relationship with Hildegarde. The narrator captures this irony when they describe how Benjamin agrees with Hildegarde that 50 is a “glorious age” and how he “longed passionately” to be 50 years old.
There is another layer of irony here, which is Hildegarde’s desire to marry an older man because she would “rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of than marry a man of thirty and take care of him.” Of course, as Benjamin ages in reverse, there does come a point where he is 30 and she must take care of him. Ultimately, though, she leaves for Italy, effectively ending their relationship in order to avoid these caretaking responsibilities.
