Examples Of Dramatic Irony In Everyday Use

A Twist!
What makes a good story worth reading, some will say it’s the plots and twists that make it exciting to read. In the stories “Everyday Use”, “Cask of Amontillado” and “A rose for Emily” different styles of irony including verbal, dramatic and situational irony are used to do just that.
Dramatic irony in a story occurs when the audience knows something that the characters do not. A great example of dramatic irony takes place in the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, with the character Dee. Of the two daughters, Dee is the oldest and Maggie is the youngest. At a very young age, Maggie suffers a personal tragedy and endures physical scarring from a house fire, while Dee is a very determined young girl who wants nothing more than

Dee appears flashy with her African attire and announces a new name for herself, her way of showing that she has left her old life behind and has started another. She immediately starts rummaging through the mother’s belongings taking things that she feels belong to her. She stumbles upon quilts that were handmade by her mother and her mother’s ancestors. Dee immediately wants to keep them and hang them for display. However, the mother has already given them to the youngest daughter Maggie. This infuriates Dee because she knows that Maggie will destroy them by using them to sleep with. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags” (Walker 428), Dee insisted they were not intended for that; that they were priceless. Here is where the irony comes into play. Dee does whatever it takes to escape the life she left behind yet she wants the quilts to preserve the heritage she claims she wants nothing to do

The story “The Cask of Amontillado” is about a man named Montresor who is seeking revenge against another man name Fortunato for the many injuries and insults he has caused to Montresor. After concocting his plan, the Montresor seeks out Fortunato at the carnival celebration to carry it out. Fortunato was an expert on wine especially one called Amontillado and here is where the Montresor used this to his advantage by luring him with it and asking his opinions of the newly acquired Amontillado that he had in his vaults. The plan was going well, and the two were down in the Montresor’s wine vaults. The nitre was causing Fortunato to cough constantly but he insisted on continuing even when the Montresor suggest they stop; Montresor knowing that Fortunato would not. He even offered Fortunato a drink to help the cough for he need to keep him alive to be able to kill him. “Drink”, he said “to the buried that repose around us.” “And I to your long life.” (Poe 327) Here the Montresor using verbal irony with Fortunato. Another example would be the cough. “The cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” Little did Fortunato know that yes he was going die, and yes it was not the cough that was going to do it. Due to the nitre and the excessive drinking Fortunato was too drunk to even realize that the Montresor locked him to the wall and was about to bury him