Richard Cory Irony

A common problem with most people is the way that they see everything, whether it’s the way that the economy works, or how television works, or anything big or small in general, people just assume that everything works out like they guessed it to. The harsh reality of that statement is that most processes that you never see don’t work out the way that you would think. A perfect example of things not being the way that they seem is the Poem, “Richard Cory”, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. “Richard Cory” is a poem about unwealthy townspeople looking up to the only rich man that they know, Richard Cory, and while the poem makes it seem like the townspeople were in the dark and Richard was in the light, the reader comes to find that it’s actually quite

Robinson included Richard Cory’s suicide at the end of the poem not only for the symbolism of the light and darkness of the story, but also for the irony of the story as well. When Richard commits suicide, it also has the great effect of making the reader have to think more deeply in what happened during and after the poem. A great quote from the poem to show how the irony works in this way would be from when the townspeople were wish that they were Richard Cory. “In fine, we thought that he was everything / To make us wish that we were in his place.” (11-2). The irony of these lines is clearly that while the townspeople want to be Cory because they think that he is rich and happy, they’re better off being themselves, and by putting in lines like this along with irony in general, the author not only tricks people into thinking that Richard Cory is in the light, but it also shocks the reader later when they find out that Richard Cory is actually in the dark, and that the reader really wouldn’t want to be like Richard at all, because not everything is what it seems to be. This delightful little bit of trickiness and irony also makes the symbolism of light and darkness fall into place more clearly by the end of the