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How Does Ralph Ellison Use Irony In The Road

388 Words2 Pages

1. Irony: Irony is used throughout the novel to demonstrate to readers the narrator’s blindness. The whole novel is the narrator telling the story of his journey as he looks back on his past. So, the story is being told by the older and wiser version of the narrator. Ellison uses irony to create a division between him as the narrator and him as a character. By using irony, readers can hear the wisdom in the older narrator but also get to know the narrator in the story – the younger version. Because irony is used, readers can tell when the ‘character’ narrator is oblivious to being used or discriminated against. Irony allows readers to see how naïve the narrator was when he was younger – something that he himself recognizes as he gets older.

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