Previous
Dialect
Definition of Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given situation, and that of the... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a... read full definition
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Ironic Tabernacling:
After Webster asserts that he does not want to be drawn in the Judge's book, the Judge makes a mysterious and ironic claim regarding the intertwining of all people:
The judge smiled. Whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacled in every other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world.
The above claim that "every man is tabernacled in every other" in a complex intertwining of "being and witness" is a moment of dramatic irony, as the reader understands the Judge's quotation to be true insofar as all the characters in Blood Meridian are documented in the book itself. The actual assertion the Judge is making appears to be that the mind of every person houses those they have come into contact with, creating a web of witness and being that includes everyone in the world. Leaving aside this interesting mystical claim, it is also literally true of the world of the novel that all the characters are sketched down in a book, be it the Judge's book or McCarthy's. Once more, then, there is a meta-reference to books within McCarthy's novel.
Furthermore, despite being mocked by his comrades, Webster is clearly wise in desiring to not be documented in the Judge's ledger, given readers' knowledge of the Judge and what he is capable of. Indeed, the Judge often destroys that which he has sketched after he sketches it, from a piece of armor to a young child.
Regardless, the intertwined complexity of man that the Judge is commenting on takes on new significance when the connections are through sheer and utter violence, as is often the case in Blood Meridian.
Related Themes:
