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Irony
Explanation and Analysis—The Rug:
In Chapter 41, Carlos goes to the house of a rich American woman who offers him the opportunity to host a CPFR party in her home. Halfway through their conversation, however, she shuttles him into the kitchen and makes sure that he is not seen. His pride is hurt, but—in an instance of situational irony—he finds himself drawn to the trappings of her wealth:
But it was strange that when I emerged from the house, I thought of the white rug in the living room with yearning. There was a comforting, delicious feeling in me. As I walked farther from it, I was possessed by a strong desire to buy a rug like it someday.
For the entirety of the book, Carlos has been deriding the goods of the middle- and upper-classes, so the reader would expect him to judge the living situations of this woman as well. It is an example of situational irony, then, that he admits he would love to buy a rug like hers, if he had her wealth. It is the opposite of what the reader would expect after reading about his allegiance to the Communist movement.
Additionally, the phrase "someday" is important in this passage. It is not as though Carlos only wants the rug as a physical item—it's that he desires what it stands for. The word "someday" implies he would one day like to have the financial resources to buy such an ostentatious rug. In this way, the rug functions as a symbol for the financial comfort that Carlos has secretly desired this entire time, despite looking poorly upon the upper-classes.
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