Essay on Irony in All King's Men

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic story about two lovers who are from two disputing families, and their eventual suicides. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony throughout the play to create tension for the audience and foreshadow the ending. Dramatic irony is when the words or actions of characters in a story have a different meaning to the reader than to the characters. This is because the reader knows something that the characters do not. Romeo and Juliet’s death could have been prevented if the characters in the story weren’t so ignorant of their situations, and often times the reader recognizes this.

In Act 3 scene I, we see dramatic irony right from the start when the

In the novel All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, the author shows how important the roles of the horses are in the story and how they relate to John Grady, the protagonist of the novel. The horse has played an important role in the development of America. It has been a form of transportation, easy muscle, and companionship. In the Wild West, it was an essential resource for a cowboy to do his daily chores. McCarthy describes horses as spiritual and as resembling the human soul; meaning that horses came in many different forms. Horses are pretty, ugly, wild, tame, etc. in the story, they have so many different descriptions and different types of personality that they appear to resemble

Suggesting that Willie’s ability to make intelligent political decisions results from this self knowledge, Warren implicitly states that Willie’s hospital project is his attempt to right all of his wrongs—to rectify all of his sins he has committed in the political arena. Warren suggests a major theme of the novel: man is “finite and corrupt” and is constantly striving to discover the “infinite and incorruptible” (Beebe 126). Through this religious concept of the pervasiveness of sin, Warren describes Willie as half genius, half demon: he plans schools, roads, straightforward tax plans and a hospital for the poor while also cruelly crushing his political opponents, and using bribes and manipulation for electoral gain.

It’s time some people know they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things for the rest of us” (139). Jack’s deprecation of the conch, a fierce symbol of democracy and social equity, reflects his true character. He does not believe in this kind of liberal fairness, where everyone gets a voice, especially the people whom he deems unworthy to speak. Jack yearns to be the one and only tyrant of the boys’ society. This feeling of anti-democracy he harbors shows that in his mind, he has already established a hierarchy in which he is at the top, and those below him must bow down.

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” Benjamin Franklin said this to explain that an individual can accomplish countless admirable tasks to create a good reputation, but only one mistake can end it. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, explains the Salem Witch Trials during the 1950s, illustrating the extreme consequences that can result from desires and secrets and emphasizes a deeper meaning into how important one’s actions can greatly affect their reputation. The drama relates to Franklin’s quote because it emphasizes that reputations, especially of those who have authority, can be built over many years of hard work but are able to be destroyed in one minute. Through irony, absolutes, and fallacies,

At Willy's funeral when Linda says, “ Willy I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there'll be nobody home. We're free and clean.... We're free. We're free... We're free.” (1465). This quote helps to demonstrate the irony that now that he and Linda are free from their financial debt

“All the King’s Horses” (Total Word Count: 747) I believe that the most important literary term noticeably utilized to shape the story in “All the King’s Horses” by Kurt Vonnegut is constant irony. Certainly, the way Kurt Vonnegut represents irony to grasp the audience’s attention is through dark humor and through the absurdities of war. With that being said, there are multitudes of ways that irony is used by Kurt Vonnegut to shape the story “All the King’s Horses”. For instance, in the beginning of the story, verbal irony is utilized by Kurt Vonnegut to inform the audience that the soldiers are at risk of being attacked, but the sergeant makes a sarcastic joke that the captors are making sandwiches for the soldiers.

• Hamlet does not murder Claudius because he thinks that he is praying, and that Claudius would go to heaven if he died while he was praying.

Jack illustrates the purpose of deception by using Earnest to escape his role of Cecily’s warden. When Algernon finds Jack’s cigarette case, he is shocked to find the name Jack graven inside. Jack attempts to explain by saying, “[M]y name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country” (Wilde Act I). As Jack, he has to be a responsible adult and take care of his niece Cecily but as Ernest he is able to live the wild life of a young bachelor. By pretending to be Ernest in town, Jack is freed from the restrictions of being a caretaker, yet he still fulfills the duties of one as he resides in the country. While explaining why he has two identities to Algernon, Jack states that being a guardian does not “conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness” (Wilde Act I). Jack has to take care of Cecily, be responsible for her, and set rules and guidelines for her to follow. In his role of guardian, he finds himself unable to have fun, so he creates an irresponsible, carefree

                In some literature, a character’s moral stature plays an important role.  In the play, A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt, no other character comes close to More’s moral reputation.  Thomas Cromwell and Richard Rich do not compare to More’s moral stature because both Rich and Cromwell lie, while Rich accepts bribes and Cromwell does anything King Henry VIII tells him to no matter what it is, and they will do whatever it takes to get what they want.  More on the other hand, would not lie no matter what the consequences would be, he would not accept a bribe under any circumstance and he would never go against his morals.

On an island that destroys innocence and welcomes chaos lives a group of boys. The book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, was written after World War II. A plane crashed and a group of boys were left alone on the island. Golding shows the transition of the boys from society and innocence, to savagery and chaos. Without society our world would turn into savages, Golding shows this through irony because of what he witnessed in World War II.

     This essay will discuss the issue of irony in Hamlet by dealing with the problems that arise as a result of Hamlet's attempt to avenge his father's death. One of the central problems is the clash between Hamlet's overpowering need to believe in the ghost of his father, who is the authoritative figure in his life, and the awareness that he lacks empirical knowledge of the truth. In trying to achieve this knowledge, Hamlet sets out on a mixed mission of accusation, revenge and the search for truth, finally causing the upset of the original revenge plot when it ricochets off Polonius' dead body and hits Hamlet in the name of Laertes.

    Irony, or the “hiding what is actually the case” in order to “achieve special rhetorical or artistic effects” (Abrams 135), is amply demonstrated in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet.

In the impersonality of the capitalist system, there’s no deniability that ultimately all laborers and demanders of laborers are mere cogs in the machine, while those who work the hardest are led by the dreams of materialistic wealth and progress. In her satirical obituary of the average, hard-working businessman led by such dreams, “The Company Man”, Ellen Goodman berates this blindness and these men’s loss of family, friends, opportunities of an actual legacy, and other intangible treasures. Using an array of rhetorical strategies, including dark humor accompanied by a harsh and apathetic tone, she conveys a rather dark portrayal of a man who may be survived, but will never survive in the memory of those who managed to acknowledge his existence