Use Of Irony In Invisible Man

Irony is one of the rhetorical devices in which it it uncovers the difference between the truth and something expected. Predominantly, it detects the misconceptions or the unfairness of a specific situation. (http://figurativelanguage.net/Irony.html) Most of the time, Frederick Douglass used irony in order to uncover the defect in the reasoning of the issue of slavery. For instance, in the third chapter, Douglass made a description about the obssesive care of his previous master named Colonel Lloyd on his horses.

Irony brings about some additional meanings to a situation. Ironical statements and situations in literature develop readers’ interest. Irony makes a work of literature more intriguing and forces the readers to use their imagination and comprehend the underlying meanings of the texts. Moreover, real life is full of ironical expressions and situations. Therefore, the use of irony brings a work of literature closer to the life.

In the novel, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, IM, or the narrator, uses his oratory skills to persuade and influence whomever his audience is to convey his ideas. One of his most memorable speeches is his eulogy for Tod Clifton. In this speech, he breaks away from the Brotherhood’s blueprints by speaking with no set framework, going against their orders. By speaking on Clifton’s identity, he acknowledges the truth of his invisibility, and really, the truth of every black man's reality and existence. Black men are constantly overlooked and over-dominated in this white man's world.

Humanity’s crux and advantage is the need to be seen by others. The human race is constantly improving and trying one-upping each other causing us to evolve-discover new things-at a fast pace; but this need also causes tension and competition to be the ‘most seen’ which leads to wars and mistrust. The Invisible Man’s narrator is only human and so he feels this same desire to be seen but to a somewhat more visceral degree, as he has been told from a young age that life would be easier if he simply ignores that base instinct- and despite getting multiple examples of why his grandfather’s words are true the narrator continues on his plight to be noticed by society. The narrator is naive in his belief that being remembered is an easy task, simply

Irony is the most powerful literary device used in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First, a good example of irony in the story is “They were burdened with sashweights sand bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” (P,2 Line, 11-13) This quote is Ironic as it tells how this system was designed to hide beauty, yet beauty was still shown by the amount of restraints on the person. Second, another good example of irony is, “The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Irony may appear in difference ways within literature. Irony changes our expectations of what might happen. It can create the unexpected twist at the end of a story or anecdote that gets people laughing or crying. Verbal irony is intended to be a humorous type of irony. Situational irony can be either funny or tragic.

1. Irony as we talked about in class is considered to be intellectual or a sort of dry humor. It also has a double meaning, where you say one thing but the opposite meaning is implied. For example, in the reading “SantaLand Diaries” David and another elf realized that Santa is an anagram of Satan. So they would substitute the word for Santa by using Satan in front of customers.

The narrator defining himself as invisible shows how he feels unrecognized and unseen, and through the novel, he defines this repeatedly. “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison 3). In the prologue, the narrator clarifies that he already showed himself as invisible, though he later says he doesn’t complain. The invisible man’s identity relies on the narrator. Through the novel, the narrator is shown being unseen though as the novel progresses, there is a sense of the narrator losing his invisibility, like when he had disguised himself as Rinehart, he sees an unfamiliar perspective and notices more things that he usually wouldn’t see, or the people that wouldn’t see him before, they saw him then.

In writing, there are multiple types of irony. One type is verbal irony, when the character says something, but means the opposite. This is commonly recognized as sarcasm. Second, there is situational irony, where the outcome is the opposite of what was expected to happen. Last, there is dramatic irony, where the audience is told or informed of something that the characters do not yet know.

Verbal irony involves a character saying one thing, and meaning another. Situational irony consists of what is expected to happen, and what actually happens. Three types of irony found in Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Cask of Amontillado”, are dramatic, verbal, and situational irony. A good example of dramatic irony occurs when Montresor explains to Fortunato that he is also a mason. Then, Fortunato asks for a sign.

The novel shows how throughout history, race determines what treatment people receive and can lead to an entire people group feeling invisible. The problematic of history, a shallow mechanistic smugness that blinds itself to the complexities of reality, especially that of racial and cultural difference, and being shown as scientific, is one of the things that create the invisibility of people in this novel (Bourassa 4). In Invisible Man, the narrator states, “Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition… A matter of the construction of their inner eye, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality” (Ellison 4).

For example, in the beginning of the story, the narrator tries to prove to the reader that he is sane. “How, then, am I mad?” Later on in the story, he tells the reader “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” This is verbal irony since right after he said that he is sane, he confesses to the reader that he killed the old man. After the narrator asked how he was mad, suspense kept building, making the reader question if he was really sane and going to kill the man, until he actually killed the man.

Irony is often used in literature to illustrate certain situations to the audience. In some pieces of literature that might be pointing out an unjust system, in others that might be to add a comedic effect, but whatever situation the author wants to illustrate, irony is very beneficial. Through small and witty, one-liners, or a bigger dramatic irony situation contrasting two very different situations, irony can be very beneficial for the reader to understand the story. Both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins have a corrupt dystopian society. Through the use of irony, the author can portray the corruptness to the audience.

Irony is a technique that involves surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions or contrasts ( Glossary... Pg 1). The greatest example of irony happens when it turns out Armand is the one that comes from black heritage. He learns this when he “finds a letter from his mom to his father explaining how he is black” turning the main plot of this story around (Chopin... Pg 5)

In this essay from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, I will be discussing the notion of invisibility and where associable the related images of blindness and sight. Using two episodes from the beginning of the novel where the narrator is still perceptually blind to the idea that he is invisible. The first episode occurs just after the battle royal, where the narrator delivers his speech to the white people. The narrator’s speech episode is an integral part of the notion of invisibility, simply because the reader is introduced to different ideas of invisibility connected to the image of blindness. The second episode occurs in the Golden Day with the veteran mocking Norton’s interest in the narrator.