Irony In The First Day By Edward P. Jones

Irony is a literary device used to indicate that a character’s choice of actions or words bring a certain implication to the reader or audience but quite unknown to the characters themselves (Wellek & Warren, 1956). In the story, the aspect of irony had been expressed at the start of the story the narrator says, (...long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother…) This is an aspect of irony because when we analyze the story, we get to understand that both the mother and the daughter lived a similar life before she went to school and became educated (Edward, 1950). Also when she was a small child, she depended on her illiterate mother for everything without being shameful. It is also ironic because the same mother she feels ashamed of is the one who helped her go to a school that in the end helped her shift her class in the society.

In the story The First Day by Edward P. Jones, the audience is faced by dilemma when focusing on the life of the mother. The mother has been described as illiterate and poverty stricken, but she is sensible about education and strives to send her child to school. In this section, the audience or reader is faced with the challenge of choosing what to think about the society in which the mother lives. For instance, if she is illiterate, then why does she have the thought of taking her daughter to school and how does she know that some documents are required for admission (Edward, 1950). If she is poor, where would she get money to push her daughter through