It is not so easy to give a complete definition of irony even though its ability to make people laugh or smile and therefore to make them think, as part of the fundamental human experiences.
One of the main themes that traverse Gogol’s repertoire is exactly the theme of irony.
Analysing it in-depth, his irony may reveal fruitful to enter the 'bottomless pocket ' of The Overcoat as well as lots of his other works.
The ironic tissue that he weaves is the keystone that most matters to try to understand what really hides beyond and behind apparently logic and harmless details.
In fact, Gogol enjoys his writing by making use of various devices that lead the whole shebang into a difficult matter.
A literary Russian figure of his age, Sergey
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Let us take a look at some examples. Consider the character of Akaky Akakievich himself. He is a bureaucrat in a department of the Russian government in St. Petersburg. He is treated with no more respect than "a common fly", regarded as a nobody and frequently mocked because deprived of every sign of power. The absence of participation and compassion facing the character’s death functions as a crossroads of irony, reinforced by the generalization (“A being disappeared, who was protected by none, dear to none…”).
In his famous essay on laugher, Bergson points out that emotional detachment is the fundamental prerequisite of laughter, that "the absence of feelings usually accompanies laughter" because it is difficult to laugh at something one is aware of. It helps, in this way, to look at the world from the outside, to zoom out.
Akaky Akakievich’s name is the first irony-marker itself; it stresses a repetition; a given name just like his father’s. Then, "kak" means “like”, a word which is linked to the 'sameness ', evoking his single-mindedness of copying, that condemns him to
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His name invites nothing but derision, also because, to Russians, it recalls a similar word that means "to defecate".
The theme of the marriage is clearly in evidence, but treated in an ironic way. “In The Overcoat the ‘marriage’ of Akaky Akakievich is to a coat…”, writes Peace. Akaky Akakievich perceives now his existence “fuller, as if he were married.”.
Another irony-marker could be also contained in the approach with respect to the theme of life after death. The dead who returns represents the turn of the victim into the perpetrator.
The contrast between the beginning of the “poor story” of Akaky Akakievich and the “fantastic” ending is well presented at the end of the text, especially when one reads the subtle wordplay on ‘dead’ and ‘alive’.
In fact, Akaky Akakievich’s absurd only really comes with his death, with the police going to “catch the corpse, alive or dead.” (“Who could have imagined that this was not the end of Akaky Akakievich—that he was destined to raise a commotion after death, as if in compensation for his utterly insignificant life?”)
I 's important to bear in mind that Gogol doesn 't hide nor soften anything. He just suspends the action or omits some parts, joking with the reader with his 'gaps in memory ',
In constructing irony the reader sees it as
In general, the contrast between human nature in Gogol’s Ukrainian tales and human nature in his Petersburg tales is striking. Whereas in his Ukrainian tales Gogol is genuinely fulsome in his praise of the ways of ordinary Ukrainian people, in his Petersburg tales Gogol is unsparing in his criticism of high social stations. This, however, should not be interpreted that Gogol praised all Ukrainians and ridiculed all Russians. Instead, he lauded the ways of common people and criticized the coxcombry of the bureaucrats and
The concealment of a deeper meaning through the use of irony is a powerful tool that can be utilized to bring about a greater impact to the actual meaning of what was intended. The use of irony is more common than it is thought to be, thus resulting in an incorrect use of the language device. In the article “Word police: irony & ironic” it is stated, “People routinely use without knowing what they mean. No one seems to use the dictionary anymore--and thus they end up sounding ignorant. ”(1).
Zora Hurston uses irony when Joe attempts to kill Spunk with a " hollow ground razor" but instead he gets shot. Ironically, later in the story Spunk gets killed by a much bigger blade. " ... the saw got him in the body" (Hurston). This irony shows reflects
Irony is present in everyday life. It has become the crux of thousands of jokes, remarks and even the media. Thousands of stories include irony in them in the form of ironic twists, characters, and plotlines. The irony in stories is often sidelined or overlooked; however, it can be so much more. In “The Veldt”, it is, in fact, a large part of the story.
Irony is the most powerful literary device used in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First, a good example of irony in the story is “They were burdened with sashweights sand bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” (P,2 Line, 11-13) This quote is Ironic as it tells how this system was designed to hide beauty, yet beauty was still shown by the amount of restraints on the person. Second, another good example of irony is, “The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for
This is the moment where his two identities, Gogol and Nikhil, begin to pull apart from each other and more major differences between the two show more intensely. Later on, Gogol develops a serious relationship with an all-American woman named Maxine who leads him ever further from his family. “He tells her he has a deadline at work, but it’s not true-- that’s the day that he and Maxine are leaving for New Hampshire, for two weeks” (144). Since Gogol is spending all this time with Maxine and her family, he barely has any time for his own family and he’d rather be with Maxine. Gogol starts lying to his parents and making up excuses to avoid them which causes him to drift from his family even more than he already has.
In the text, Irony is used to really create a lot of the conflicts in the
Gogol, the son of Ashima and Ashoke, was born in America and spends the first half of his life trying to run away from his Bengali roots. Although Gogol does not feel as lost and detached as his parents in America, he has a difficult time trying to balance the Bengali culture he was born into as well as the American culture he sees and experiences all around him as he is growing up. Throughout the novel, The Namesake, Gogol struggles to develop his identity due to the clashing of Bengali and American culture in his life. Gogol’s first obstacle in his search for self-identity occurs only a couple days after his birth, when his parents must decide on a name in order to be released from the hospital. Ashima and Ashoke eventually decide on Gogol, after the writer who saved Ashoke’s life during a train crash.
Another way the author A.C.H Smith uses irony to establish surprise is from dramatic irony. Dramatic irony
Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is an example of how archetypal irony can shape an entire work. Gregor Samsa our main character is not concerned at all with his own personal wellbeing when he awakes to discover this twist. He is concerned with the inconvenience that it may have on those around him. Even through his death we see the truth behind those who he is most concerned with, which in itself is ironic. Irony is first seen when a man wakes up to find that a cruel twist of fate has turned him into a giant beetle.
Irony is often used in literature to illustrate certain situations to the audience. In some pieces of literature that might be pointing out an unjust system, in others that might be to add a comedic effect, but whatever situation the author wants to illustrate, irony is very beneficial. Through small and witty, one-liners, or a bigger dramatic irony situation contrasting two very different situations, irony can be very beneficial for the reader to understand the story. Both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins have a corrupt dystopian society. Through the use of irony, the author can portray the corruptness to the audience.
Irony is a technique that involves surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions or contrasts ( Glossary... Pg 1). The greatest example of irony happens when it turns out Armand is the one that comes from black heritage. He learns this when he “finds a letter from his mom to his father explaining how he is black” turning the main plot of this story around (Chopin... Pg 5)
Saint Petersburg, the setting of Crime and Punishment, plays a major role in the formation in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s acclaimed novel. Dostoyevsky’s novels focus on the theme of man as a subject of his environment. Dostoyevsky paints 1860s St. Petersburg as an overcrowded, filthy, and chaotic city. It is because of Saint Petersburg that Raskolnikov is able to foster in his immoral thoughts and satisfy his evil inclinations. It is only when Raskolnikov is removed from the disorderly city and taken to the remoteness of Siberia that he can once again be at peace.