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Verbal Irony In Edgar Allan Poe

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Without doubt, Edgar Allan Poe’s story is one of the author’s masterpiece. The story is an exhibit of artistic genius with various literary features well incorporated. Among them, irony, defined as, “A figure of speech which is a contradiction or incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs”, is the most evident. Allan Poe demonstrates the use of various types of irony throughout the play, which he uses to pass the intended message to the audience.
Verbal irony, defined as the use of vocal language to express a feeling which is totally different from what is expected, can be easily deducted from the plot. To begin with, the enthralling tale begins with the anonymous narrator telling his readers that he is about to recount a “series of mere household events”. As it turns out in the story, the events cannot be simply described as mere when the author clearly knows there is murder involved. When considering the horrible conclusion, the very opening of the story establishes an ironic tone that continues until the end of the tale. Probably, the ironic and casual way the narrator contemplates his story as mere is meant to inform the reader that the facts of the story he is narrating may soon turn out to be something different from what is first presented.
Secondly, the narrator mentions an ironic statement with regard to his nature. He indicates that he is a timid and humane person. As a matter of fact, his parents made jokes concerning him with regard to his
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