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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
Irony
Explanation and Analysis—A Perfect Lady:
When the narrator brings his new wife Mala to meet Mrs. Croft, he expects the traditional 103-year-old woman to criticize Mala for her unfamiliar Bengali attire, but Mrs. Croft compliments her instead—an example of situational irony. The irony comes across in the following passage, as the three characters are sitting together in Mrs. Croft’s living room:
I wondered if Mrs. Croft had ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot painted on her forehead and bracelets stacked on her wrists. I wondered what she would object to. I wondered if she could see the red dye still vivid on Mala’s feet, all but obscured by the bottom edge of her sari. At last Mrs. Croft declared, with equal measures of disbelief and delight I knew well:
‘She is a perfect lady!’
Now it was I who laughed.
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