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Summary Of The Irony Of Charles Bukowski's 8 Count

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The Irony of Charles Bukowski’s “8 Count”
M. H. Abrams describes “irony” as “[…] dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however, in order to deceive, but to achieve special rhetorical or artistic effects” (“Irony”). It can be grouped into three main categories: verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony. The most often used form of irony in literary works is dramatic irony. It involves a situation in which “[…] the character acts in a way we recognize to be grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances, or expects the opposite of what we know that fate holds in store […]” (“Dramatic irony”). An example of dramatic irony would be hearing one of your friends talk about his plans to propose to his girlfriend even though you know that she has no intentions of getting engaged.
The most ironic component of Charles Bukowski’s …show more content…

This pressure could have been one of the reasons that triggered his writer’s block in the first place, which would explain the anger-fueled apathy that he addresses the reader with.
In summary, “8 Count” has an inherently ironic nature that is only enhanced by the way it is written As Russell Harrison explains it in his collection of Bukowski essays, “[…] we cannot fully appreciate the ironic situation of a protagonist unless we feel – to some extent – positively involved in his fate” (201). After all, the only people whose fate the reader is more concerned about than the characters of their beloved writers are the writers

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