How Does Paul Volponi Use Verbal Irony

¨Irony has two sides, a funny one, and a serious one¨. (Author unknown) Sometimes ironic statements can be both. Authors often use verbal irony to send messages to the reader. Throughout the novel, Black and White, Paul Volponi uses verbal irony to foreshadow events, make the truth known, and make comments about racial inequality.

Paul Volponi uses foreshadowing throughout the book to tell the reader what will happen next. At the end of every Friday basketball practice Coach Casey gives the same exact speech because he wants his players to make good decisions over the weekend. Coach says, “Try not to get into any stupid this weekend” (p.12). The coach’s comment is ironic because that same night Eddie and Marcus start robbing people, eventually leading to Sidney Parker getting shot by accident. His lecture foreshadowed the robberies. Later on, during halftime at a basketball game, the team goes to the locker room for their break. X writes, “Take no prisoners” (41) on the blackboard to point out that they needed to play more aggressively in the game. Minutes later Marcus gets arrested. X´s comment is ironic because Marcus became a prisoner for the robbery. Although Paul Volponi uses many literary terms, he uses foreshadowing the most.

Eddie's dad said to Eddie. “I'm glad you are not mixed into all of this” (53) He says this after Marcus got arrested and he doesn't know that Eddie was the one who shot the gun. This is an example of telling the truth because he said the exact opposite of what happened. After Marcus got arrested, Moses says “Coach is his real white brother” (57) He says this when Marcus was being held at the police station and the coach was with him but Eddie was doing nothing and seemed like he didn't care and everyone knows Eddie was at the robbery. Even Though we see telling the truth through many people I feel we see it most through X and