Previous
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
Book 5, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Iron Bars:
In this piece of dialogue from Book 5, Chapter 2, Hardy conveys the heartbreaking dramatic irony of Clym Yeobright's confusion and grief about his mother. He does so using visual imagery, pathos, and a simile of imprisonment:
‘If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this incomprehensible thing!… Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead—just once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison—what we might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads!
Related Themes:
