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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
Part 1: Roots—Adam Appich
Explanation and Analysis—Live Burial:
Adam Appich's father, as described in his chapter of "Roots," plants a tree to celebrate the birth of each of his children. Adam is five when his little brother Charles is born, and his father comes home with a black walnut in the baby's honor. But Adam's father begins planting the tree with the burlap wrap still on the root ball. No one in the family but Adam seems to care, but the little boy risks his own safety to "prevent the murder" of the tree. His knowledge of the needs of trees results in a moment of dramatic irony:
“Dad, stop! That cloth. The tree is choking. Its roots can’t breathe.”
His father grunts and wrestles on. Adam pitches himself into the hole to prevent the murder. The full weight of the root ball comes down on his stick legs and he screams. His father yells the deadliest word of all. He yanks Adam by one arm out of his live burial and hauls the boy across the lawn, depositing him on the front porch. There the boy lies facedown on the concrete, howling, not for his pain, but for the unforgivable crime inflicted on his brother-to-be’s tree.
Burlap wraps are commonly used to safely transport large, mature trees. Adam is correct that one should usually remove the burlap before planting the tree. Leaving the burlap on restricts root growth, especially while the tree is young. Adam understands this while his father does not; Adam thinks of trees as living beings with needs while his father thinks of them as decoration. But this dramatic irony leads to anger from Adam's father, as he cannot understand why his young son has dangerously thrown himself into a hole and disrupted this important ritual. Even after his father forcibly removes him from his peaceful protest, Adam still does not think of his own pain, only of the "unforgivable crime" of hurting a tree on purpose.
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Part 1: Roots—Patricia Westerford
Explanation and Analysis—The Quadrupole:
In her chapter in "Roots," Patricia Westerford quickly climbs the ranks of the field of dendrology—the study of trees. Soon, Purdue University, where she works as a researcher, acquires a new piece of cutting-edge equipment. Ironically, this machine, a highly-technical scientific advancement, is described as being a gift from a "pagan god":
Purdue gets hold of one of the first prototype quadrupole gas chromatography-mass spectrometers. Some pagan god brings the machine right to Patricia, as a reward for her constancy. With such a device, she can measure which volatile organic compounds the grand old eastern trees put into the air and what these gases do to the neighbors.
A quadrupole gas chromatography-mass spectrometer, as is clear from its unwieldy name, is a very complicated piece of technology. It was on the cutting edge of the field in the late '80s, when Patricia was in graduate school. But this device, which helps researchers understand nature on the most precise, molecular level, was apparently brought to Patricia by "some pagan god." Pagan gods were usually related to natural phenomena and arose from cultures that regarded nature as the work of divine beings, beyond the realm of human understanding. Thus it is ironic that such a pagan god would bring the spectrometer to Patricia, since that device is used for science that regards nature as something that humans can study and understand to a significant extent. In the novel, nature often becomes a powerful force altering human actions, represented here by the pagan god.
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Part 2: Trunk
Explanation and Analysis—Come Alive:
In "Trunk," Patricia Westerford has a rather humorous exchange with her New York editor, who has just read her book, The Secret Forest. The passage below ends with a quick bit of verbal irony, leading to Patricia's clever comeback:
Nobody calls her except with unpleasant business. It’s her editor, whom she has never met, from New York, a city she has never seen. “Patricia? Your book. I just finished it!”
Patricia winces, waiting for the ax.
“Unbelievable. Who knew that trees got up to all those things?”
“Well. A few hundred million years of evolution gives you a repertoire.”
“You make them come alive.”
“Actually, they were alive already.”
The editor, clearly immersed in novels and the marketing jargon of the publishing industry, says that Patricia's book makes trees "come alive." This cliché refers to how Patricia's book explains that trees communicate with each other through chemical signals, making the trees seem more aware and, indeed, alive than they otherwise would. He also uses the phrase to simply describe that the book is well-written and engaging, as a novelist might make their characters "come alive" through careful description. But of course trees are living beings, so the editor's use of that phrase is verbally ironic. Patricia, with her dry wit, snaps back: "Actually, they were alive already." On one level, this statement is simply a bit of sass directed toward a man Patricia finds annoying and prying. But on another level, Patricia asserts that humans should not need to find out that trees communicate with each other in order to believe that trees are alive. Her retort to the editor sums up the thrust of her book (and of The Overstory at large): that trees are living beings and have been for much longer than humans have studied them.
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Explanation and Analysis—Take A Load Off:
Adam Appich, now in graduate school in "Trunk," is terribly attracted to his advisor, Professor Mieke Van Dijk. Despite his attempts to impress and woo her, he hardly ever works on his research. Mieke describes his lack of effort with funny verbal irony:
HE CONSULTS with his advisor. Professor Mieke Van Dijk, she of the sublime Dutch bob, clipped consonants, and soft-core softened vowels. In fact, she makes him confer with her every two weeks, in her office up in College Ten, hoping the enforced check-in will jump-start his research.
“You are dragging your feet over nothing.”
In fact, he has his feet up, reclining on her Victorian daybed across the office from her desk, as if she’s psychoanalyzing him. It amuses them both.
The professor lightly scolds Adam: "You are dragging your feet over nothing." Actually, he is not dragging his feet at all but has them confidently up on the couch. Thus Mieke's statement is verbally ironic. The irony suggests that Adam's problem is not the fact that he is "dragging [his] feet" (that he is depressed or unmotivated and therefore not working) but the fact that he has his feet up, both literally and figuratively (that he is too confident and comfortable with his professor and therefore slacks off). Note the significant development in Adam's character from his traumatized, isolated childhood. Now in a place that supports his intellectual pursuits, he ironically finds himself too comfortable, which stymies his studies as well.
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Part 4: Seeds
Explanation and Analysis—Just Words:
In the final section, "Seeds," after hearing of Adam's imprisonment, Ray tries to speak to Dorothy about the case and about how Adam can hardly be blamed for his actions in light of the rampant destruction of nature. Ray tries to say that someone should be allowed to do anything it takes to save their home or their loved ones. But due to his paralysis Ray can only make strained grunts. The narrator presents Ray's statements in italics, but Dorothy cannot understand him, creating a moment of dramatic irony as the reader knows what Ray means but Dorothy does not:
If you could save yourself, your wife, your child, or even a stranger by burning something down, the law allows you. If someone breaks into your home and starts destroying it, you may stop them however you need to.
His few syllables are mangled and worthless. She shakes her head. “I can’t get you, Ray. Say it some other way.”
He can find no way to say what so badly needs saying. Our home has been broken into. Our lives are being endangered. The law allows for all necessary force against unlawful and imminent harm.
[...] "No worries, Ray. It’s just words. Everything’s fine.”
Ray implies that the entire world, "our home," has been "broken into," as humans extract more and more from nature. Just like someone can kill a home invader in self-defense and not be charged with murder, Ray believes that Adam and the Life Defense Force were allowed under the law to use "all necessary force" for their ends.
In the first italicized statement in the passage above, Ray speaks rather vaguely, and it is unclear what exactly he means about Adam. Thus Dorothy responds, “I can’t get you, Ray. Say it some other way.” Even though his "syllables are mangled and worthless," it seems like she just needs him to clarify what he means. In Ray's second statement, he advocates for action to defend "our home" from invasion. Now, Dorothy's response reminds him that his statement is "just words": with his paralysis, Olivia's death, and Adam's imprisonment, the Life Defense Force can hardly attempt the bold action he describes. Pitifully, though readers know what Ray means, these are hardly even words to Dorothy.
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