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How Does Brierce Use Irony In The Open Boat

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Irony is usually thought of to be used in a humorous tone, and most of the time it is. These two works of Bierce and Crane take irony and transform it into three other kind of ironies: situational irony, dramatic irony, and verbal irony. All of these ironies can be thought of to the same degree. All three of these are used when an event that happens seems contrary to what one would expect (Merriam-Webster.com). It's kind of like when a professional race car driver crashes. They're supposed to be the best driver in the world, but even they crashed. It seemed pretty ironic. Bierce introduced his idea of these ironies during the realism movement while Crane introduced them in the naturalism movement. Both Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane …show more content…

This irony is most common and is used a lot. In “The Open Boat”, as the men are struggling to keep the dinghy afloat, the captain revives their hopes of getting to shore by saying “'Oh, well...we'll get ashore all right.'” But this wasn't necessarily true as the fierce wind would hold them back. However, the oiler responds to the captain with “'Yes! If this wind holds'” (NAAL 586). This is deemed ironic because the strong wind is actually how the men and the dinghy are in this situation anyways. The wind is creating big waves which keep coming into the boat. So really, they don't want the wind to keep up, but the oiler believes it needs to keep up. This idea crushes the hope of getting back to shore as the men realize the wind is no good to them. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, during this time of the country gentlemen were look at with some kind of certain respect as a gentlemen was hard to find. Peyton considered himself a gentlemen but when it comes to the crime of war, being a gentlemen means nothing. “The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of people, and gentlemen are not excluded” (NAAL 319). This is ironic because even though in regular society, being a gentlemen is basically royalty but when doing a crime it doesn't matter, everyone gets hanged, including Peyton: the self acclaimed

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Irony is one of the rhetorical devices in which it it uncovers the difference between the truth and something expected. Predominantly, it detects the misconceptions or the unfairness of a specific situation. (http://figurativelanguage.net/Irony.html) Most of the time, Frederick Douglass used irony in order to uncover the defect in the reasoning of the issue of slavery. For instance, in the third chapter, Douglass made a description about the obssesive care of his previous master named Colonel Lloyd on his horses.

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In the story Camp Harmony, by Monica Stone, irony is used by the author to convey a message. For example, the word itself means “agreement; accord; harmonious relations”, according to Dictionary.com. The author, however, describes how inharmonious the camp is, “What was I doing behind a fence, like a criminal?If there were accusations to be made, why hadn’t I been given a fair trial?” (Stone, 323). This quote shows how at the time, the author was so confused as to why she and her family was at the camp when they had done nothing to deserve imprisonment.

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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

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“An Occurrence at Owl Bridge Creek” takes place in the Southern United States during the American Civil War. One thing to remember about the Civil War is that most of the fighting took place on southern soil, and for the Union to succeed in winning the war, their forces had to conquer the South. Not only that, but due to the agriculture being so profitable in the South, few southerners saw a need for industrial development, which resulted in the need to destroy the blockades to prevent northern troops from advancing southward. Late in the Civil War, the Union and the Confederacy strived to dominate the rail lines in northern Alabama, with the Confederates frantically dismantling critical establishments to delay the northerners advance and fracture

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Foster and is one of New York Times Best Sellers. This book explains everything you will ever need to know about literature and more ,and it has a chapter on irony. This book states that “Irony trumps everything”(Foster 252). One story the book talks about is the “The Arrow of Heaven” This story is about a man being killed by an arrow ,but no one knows how he was killed by the arrow because he was in a “high tower with higher windows” (Foster 255).

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In writing, there are multiple types of irony. One type is verbal irony, when the character says something, but means the opposite. This is commonly recognized as sarcasm. Second, there is situational irony, where the outcome is the opposite of what was expected to happen. Last, there is dramatic irony, where the audience is told or informed of something that the characters do not yet know.

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Irony: A literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true. A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. Example: “The children would leave his classroom / for the playground to torment the weak / and the smart” (Collins 14-16).

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Many books have irony, but no book utilizes it more than L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Some of these numerous ironic things include, Scarecrow having no brain but solves most of the problems. Tin Woodman has no heart, yet he still feels emotions. Cowardly Lion says he has no courage, but he is incredibly courageous when he needs to. In the book, these supporting characters encounter their ironic internal conflicts along their journey through Oz.

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Another example of irony would be when Huck meets the Grangerfords, who appear to be a very civilized and respectable family but it is soon revealed that they have been involved in a 30 year feud with another family that has caused many deaths on both

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One example of situational irony is first, the name “Fortunato” means “Fortunate” in Italian, but Fortunato is actually very unfortunate. Next, the word “cask” means “wine barrel,” but coffin also comes from the same word. So in other words, Fortunato believes he will reach a cask of wine, but in all actuality he will reach his coffin. Also, another great example of situational irony comes when Montresor has just dismembered Fortunato and exits the catacombs. Then, Montresor claims, “My heart grew sick-“(240).

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The first way irony is used would be a form of verbal irony, this is seen when Montresor first sees Fortunato at the carnival and states, "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met" (237). Poe uses irony in this statement, meaning one thing, but obviously stating another, by being luckily met, nevertheless he does not mean he was lucky in a

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