Irony In The Adventures Of Peregrine Pickle

In the satirical passage from the novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Tobias Smollett exposes the irony between two characters who dislike each other but still attempt to act with social propriety. Using contrasted word choice, interrupted order, and visual imagery, Smollett demonstrates the frustration of Peregrine Pickle and Godfrey Gauntlet controlling their emotions while maintaining the social norm of being respectful and polite. Smollett utilizes contrasted word choice to display the forced politeness converting to superiority and anger. Towards the beginning of the passage there is a complimentary calling of the dialogue between the characters. Smollett inputs the transition of the characters calling each other by “sir” and the demeaning factor of the repetition in the same line. The repetition of “sir” corresponds to the sarcasm of this masked anger yet still being a “gentlemen” about it. As the dialogue progresses in the passage, it eventually is thrown in with hints of bursting out and nothing polite. The anger between the two characters heighten and Pickle and Gauntlet are accusing each other about Pickle arrogantly not wanting to tell his exchange of letters with Gauntlet’s sister. With the use of contrasted word choice, this literary device comes to effect

The interrupted order is presented starting on line 14, written by Smollett, “… have to demand that satisfaction?”-Sir…”. This identifies that they slowly start to cut each other off, and on lines 14 to 20, Pickle and Gauntlet repeatedly lose are raging towards each other. Calling each other out by one’s own name reveals the underlying emotion is difficult to control when the reputation of their being to the social norm is on the line. Smollett portrays that even though Pickle and Gauntlet are cutting each other off in their discussion, the characters want to maintain the social norm of being