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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—All I Can:
In Chapter 1, Richard's family goes to court to try to win child support from the now-long-absent father. Richard describes, in terrible detail, how his mother cries profusely in court: she "began weeping so copiously that she could not talk for a few moments." But the outcome, nonetheless, is frustratingly ironic:
For some reason the entire thing struck me as being useless; I felt that if my father were going to feed me, then he would have done so regardless of what the judge said to him [...] at last she managed to say that her husband had deserted her and her two children, that her children were hungry, that they stayed hungry, that she worked, that she was trying to raise them alone. [...] I only heard one sentence of what he said.
"I'm doing all I can, Your Honor," he mumbled, grinning.
Richard doesn't understand the entire court proceeding. He understands that, as a Black person, the court system will not help him. And he understands that if his father didn't care about him, the court was not going to change that. The irony comes after Richard's mother describes in excruciating detail how poor and hungry their family is. In response, the father flatly lies: "I'm doing all I can." Obviously to all in attendance, he is not. The effusive, sobbing description of the hungry kids, juxtaposed against the clipped, obviously dishonest dismissal from the father, creates verbal irony. The father, like Richard, understands the irony of the situation, lying with a grin.
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Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—I Never Read the Paper:
In Chapter 5, Richard lives with his Granny while in the sixth grade. Richard has started selling papers for money; secretly, he enjoys reading the literary supplement at the back of each issue. Normally, Granny forbids reading anything other than the Bible, calling it "the devil's work." But Granny allows Richard to have a job, which ironically allows him to read in hiding:
Now, at last, I could have my reading in the home, could have it there with the approval of Granny. She had already given me permission to sell papers. Oh, boy, how lucky it was for me that Granny could not read!
Richard notes how lucky he is that Granny cannot read and therefore cannot investigate his ruse that allows him to read. But, unbeknownst to Richard, the paper is distributed by the Ku Klux Klan and contains white supremacist rhetoric. When Richard tries to sell one of his papers to a Black man on the street, the man informs him that he is selling racist work:
"The paper you're selling preaches the Ku Klux Klan doctrines," he said.
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed.
"Son, you're holding it in your hands," he said.
"I read the magazine, but I never read the paper," I said vaguely, thoroughly rattled.
Richard thinks that Granny will never catch him in his reading, and therefore she will never punish him, because she cannot read. But Richard, in fact, gets himself into trouble because he did not read the news portion of the paper. This creates a situational irony between Richard's expectations and reality. The situational irony also helps to describe how, in this portion of the novel, Richard is still coming to understand racism. He understands that his Granny is poorly educated and cannot read, an effect of structural racism; but he does not read more about the news himself. The contrast between these scenarios creates an instructive irony.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Wanna Drink, Boy?:
At the beginning of Chapter 9, Richard is now 17 and works full time for a clothing store and sometimes makes deliveries by bicycle. One day, he blows a tire and is forced to walk back to the city from the suburbs on a hot summer day. But some young White men who seem to be nice enough offer for him to ride along on their running board. They are drinking in the car, and they offer him a drink, creating a darkly ironic situation:
"Wanna drink, boy?" one asked.
The memory of my six-year-old drinking came back and filled me with caution. But I laughed, the wind whipping my face.
"Oh, no!" I said.
The words were barely out of my mouth before I felt some thing hard and cold smash me between the eyes. It was an empty whisky bottle. [...]
"Ain't you learned no better sense'n that yet?" asked the man who hit me. "Ain't you learned to say sir to a white man yet?"
Richard still has some childish naivete about these White men and thinks that they are genuinely offering him a drink. In fact, the only worry he has stems from his childhood alcoholism, a period in his past which is not often explored in the book. Unintentionally, Richard reacts, "Oh, no!," and accidentally laughs out loud at his own memory, and the White men think he is laughing at them. As happens so often in the novel, Richard makes an entirely innocuous statement and is punished severely for it: one of the men bashes Richard over the head with the whiskey bottle. Richard first assumes that the White men are being kind to him, but then they immediately react with violence when Richard forgets to call the men "sir."
What follows is an instance of verbal irony, as what the men say is explicitly contradicted by their actions. The men continue to speak ironically, as what they present as kindness is in fact cruelty: "You sure ought to be glad it was us you talked to that way. You're a lucky bastard, 'cause if you'd said that to some other white man," Richard would be dead. It is verbally ironic that the men should say that Richard should be "glad" at all to have talked to them, as one of the men has just hit Richard over the head with a glass bottle, knocking him off of a moving car. These men, paradoxically casting themselves as kind and perhaps believing it, in fact reveal the real state of race relations in the south at this time.
Related Themes:
Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—No Stealing:
In Chapter 10, Richard gets hired for one of his many jobs, this time by a movie theater as a ticket-taker. Richard knows that he has kept himself out of legal trouble, so he thinks he will get the job; however, situational irony is in play:
My chances for getting the job were good; I had no past record of stealing or violating the laws. [...] The boss man warned me:
"Now, look, I'll be honest with you if you be honest with me. I don't know who's honest around this joint and who isn't. But if you are honest, then the rest are bound to be. All tickets will pass through your hands. There can be no stealing unless you steal."
Richard tells the proprietor that he has never stolen, and as above, Richard is only hired because he doesn't steal. But in fact Richard is only taking the job because he intends to steal; he applied for the job in the first place because a bell-boy at his previous hotel job told him it would be easy to steal by reselling tickets for a profit. This is thus an ironic situation: Richard is hired to steal because he (supposedly) does not steal. This situation also shows Richard's developing system of morality. He begins to feel that he is allowed to hurt, or steal from, White people, because they do not live on equal moral ground: "Stealing was not a violation of my ethics, but of [the boss's]; I felt that things were rigged in his favor and any action I took to circumvent his scheme of life was justified. Yet I had not convinced myself." So while the situation seems ironic on its face, in Richard's view—at least for the moment—he is being totally logical in an immoral world.
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