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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 3
Explanation and Analysis—Talking Book:
In Chapter 3, Equiano describes his wonder at Dick and Pascal's ability to talk to books (especially the Bible) and hear their responses. Equiano is using dramatic irony to get at the complex emotional experience he had growing up enslaved:
I had often seen my master and Dick employed in reading; and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did; and so to learn how all things had a beginning. For that purpose I have often taken up a book, and talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me; and I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent.
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Double Crossed:
In Chapter 4, Equiano uses dramatic irony to foreshadow his great disappointment when Pascal decides to sell him instead of freeing him. Equiano describes the misguided hope that built while he was aboard Pascal's ship:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[Pascal] even paid attention to my morals; and would never suffer me to deceive him, or tell lies, of which he used to tell me the consequences; and that if I did so, God would not love me. So that from all this tenderness I had never once supposed, in all my dreams of freedom, that he would think of detaining me any longer than I wished.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Disgraced Grandeur:
In Chapter 9, Equiano points out the situational irony of the poor living and working conditions enslaved people endure in Genoa, a city that prides itself on its riches. He uses logos to gesture toward the implications of this situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+This is one of the finest cities I ever saw; some of the edifices were of beautiful marble, and made a most notable appearance; and many had very curious fountains before them. The churches were rich and magnificent, and curiously adorned both in the inside and out. But all this grandeur was, in my eyes, disgraced by the galley-slaves, whose condition, both there and in other parts of Italy, is truly piteous and wretched.
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Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Cruel Repayment:
In Chapter 11, Equiano uses verbal irony to highlight the injustice of the way Black laborers are treated in all sectors of the global economy:
Unlock with LitCharts A+One day I went with a free negro tailer, named Joe Diamond, to one Mr. Cochran, who was indebted to him some trifling sum; and the man, not being able to get his money, began to murmur. The other immediately took a horse-whip to pay him with it: but by the help of a good pair of heels, the tailor got off.
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