Zadie Smith’s White Teeth epigraph “What is past is prologue,” means that what has occurred in the past has led up to what is happening in the future or present. Smith illustrates the struggles three families go through for identity, legacy, striving for a good future while holding onto the traditions of the past, and maintaining ones religion or beliefs. Through the text, the thematic significance of the past occurs often with the recurring flashbacks which sometimes goes as far back to 1857; with Samad’s mutinous great-grandfather and 1907 with Irie’s past about her great-grandmother and white colonial great-grandfather. The novel takes a comical and ironical approach to alleviate the tension that is actually occurring in the …show more content…
Alsana does not want her children to endure life in Bangladesh she says, “I am crying with misery for those poor families and out of relief for my own children!...at least they will not die in the streets like rats” (274). For her the longing is still there and she embraces her culture, but she realizes that the conditions are not suitable at the moment for return. Later in the novel Samad displays a common feeling of people in the diaspora to Irie when he realizes that his and his sons’ lives are not in his control and there is nothing he can do about the way their futures will turn out: “These days, it feels to me like you make a devil’s pact when you walk into this country…you want to make a little money, get yourself started, …but you mean to go back!...Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers—who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated…and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents.” (554) This breakdown really shows how people in the diaspora experience a feeling of loss. Even Irie manifests this feeling even if she was born in England; she longs to know her roots and history of who she is. There is an interesting scene when she goes to get her hair done because to her it is the worst part of her identity that she would like to change, Neena says to her, ‘“What have you done? You had beautiful hair, man. All curly and wild.”
5) The situational irony in the story is that in the beginning a fun filled happy day with a fun contest is expected and what actually occurs is something barbaric and murderous.
In the “Story of an Hour” we observe many instances in which irony takes place.
Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.
As a whole, all these examples of irony help to prove the theme of abuse of power because they show how the policemen are able to use their positions to overturn the truth and get Mr. Chiu to sign a letter confessing to a crime of sabotage he didn’t commit and about how Mr.Chiu becomes a saboteur later on himself to get revenge.
Between the stories of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Poe, and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway, the authors are able to control these stories through the use of irony, defined as a “contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and what is reality. This can be a difference between the surface meaning of something that is said and the underlying meaning” (http://www.literarydevices.com/irony/). Within these short stories, each author has been able to bring the reader into the story by giving them the opportunity to endure the thoughts and feelings of individual characters which include the taste for revenge, and the bitter truth of a marriage. The way irony is placed into the stories has
Dramatic irony was a major element used for implementing suspense in to the film. A representation of irony shown in the movie that showcases
The author of the story “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Roald Dahl, uses a significant amount of irony throughout the story. Dahl uses irony to make his story more appealing to the reader by keeping them engaged. An example of irony in the story is when Mary is six months pregnant and her husband expresses he is leaving her, so she murders him. The audience would have never seen this coming because the author expresses Mary’s feelings from the beginning of the story by saying, “She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in the door or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whiskey had taken some of it away.” (Dahl 1-2). When Dahl shares Mary’s feelings, the reader concludes that Mary is an innocent, loving wife that truly loves her husband and would do absolutely anything for him. But when Mary murders him after he decides to leave, situational irony appears. This is an example of situational irony because the reader would never expect Mary to murder her husband, but the exact opposite occurs. Dahl also uses situational irony as an example of language. The language makes the story more intriguing and exciting. The situational irony is used in the story to shock the reader and to create the climax of the plot.
My grandparents struggled on a day-to-day basis because my grandfather’s salary was only enough to eat rice and beans. My grandfather realized that it was not possible to be able to feed four children and improve their lifestyle under this low-income job. He began to seek for a new job in which he would gain a decent amount of money to improve his family’s lifestyle. He was not able to obtain a good paying job in Mexico. As a result, he found that the only solution would be for him to immigrate to the United States. The author Carol Cleaveland, from the George Mason University, finds that many immigrants “faced the choice of subsisting at home, or realizing the hope of earning a better living job in El Norte” this was the case for my grandfather (576).
5. Humor exploits ridiculous or incongruous aspects of life for laughter or amusement. Although the novel as a whole does not use much humor, there are some fine examples of it in chapter 10. Give two
In addition, disappointment is another reason Jayanti choses to let assimilation take over her self-identity. When she finally realizes that America is not as glamorous as she imagined, read about or saw in pictures, she feels disheartened. When she arrives, she looks forward in seeing, “neat red brick house with matching flowery drapes, the huge, perfectly mowed lawn green like it had been painted, the shiny concrete driveway on which sat two shiny motorcars”(73). However, she is greeted by a, “crowded [apartment] with faded, over stuffed sofas and rickety end tables that look like they’ve come from a larger place...the tiny room I am to occupy - it is the same size as my bathroom at home” (73,74).
Dramatic irony is a valuable tool used by writers in literary works in order to engage the audience in the works and to add a level complexity to the characters. Dramatic irony is understood by the audience, but not the characters. With this particular type of irony, the writer makes the audience more involved and they are able to empathize more with the characters in the works. Although the character may be heavily disliked, dramatic irony can cause the viewer to feel a sense of empathy as though they were in the same situation. With this technique, the character may also seem more real and relatable. And more often than not, when dramatic irony is used, the viewer will be put in a position of helplessness. In A Doll House, Ibsen takes advantage of this technique and utilizes heavy amounts of dramatic irony with his characters, especially Torvald, in order to engross the audience and also to place the audience in a position where they are hopeless, which could
According to John Palmer, this "dark" irony is essential for the novel's structure. He states, "The Secret Agent is built [...] on the characteristic esthetic tensions of satirical fiction - misunderstandings, dramatic ironies, revealing symbolic parallels and contrasts, and the like" (104). Claire Rosenfield says that Conrad uses an ironic type of "gallows humor" to effectively communicate the darkness of the world portrayed in the novel. Life is so appalling that this humor arrives "in the midst of horror, the point at which despair becomes humorous" (121). E. M. W. Tillyard's perspective differs from that of Rosenfield and Palmer; from his perspective, Conrad keeps "his dreadful story within the bounds of comedy" by means of his ironic method (103). His comments imply that the ironic tone does not effectively convey the sinister darkness present in the story.
School, to me and among many peers of my age, is not a distant term. I have spent one-third of my life time sitting in classrooms, every week since I was seven years old. After spending this much time in school, many things and experiences that happened there have left their mark in my memory. Some are small incidences while some have had a great impact on me. However, regardless the degree of significance, things that happened all contributed to shape the person that I am now.
There are three very important aspects that play a major rule in my life. They can be categorized as intellectual, social, and spiritual. My intellectual self is interesting because I am mainly right-brained which means that I tend to use my creativity more than my mathematical skills, also making me a visual learner. My social self consists of friends, family, and my surroundings. I spend most of my time at home with my family. Whenever I am with my friends, I observe their behaviors and listen to their opinions. I am more of an independent type of person. Being with different people has influenced me into appreciating different cultures and beliefs. I have learned things that have now been incorporated into my own set of beliefs and
This explains the beginning of my life all the way to the end of my life. My life from the beginning was very fun as I grew up living with my mom’s friend and my friend. But there were a lot of fights and I was very hyper back then. I have ADHD so back then when I was little; I was very hyper and wouldn't stop moving around the place. I always was annoying back then and never seemed to get my homework done at school.