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Anthropomorphism
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 5
Explanation and Analysis—Recommendation:
In Chapter 5, Kimmerer describes the culture shock she experienced when she joined the academic world of science, and also how she adapted to the environment despite significant hostility. She uses verbal irony and dramatic irony to make a point about her racist adviser:
I was accepted to do graduate work in one of the world’s finest botany programs, no doubt on the strength of the letter of recommendation from my adviser, which read, “She’s done remarkably well for an Indian girl.”
Unfortunately, it is not inconceivable that a graduate committee could have taken the adviser's comment seriously. However, Kimmerer's quotation is ironic. She has just described how she committed herself to science and learned to excel at it over the course of her undergraduate degree. At the time she writes Braiding Sweetgrass, if not at the time she applied to graduate school, she seems confident that she was accepted on the strength of her own merit alone. The adviser's recommendation is in fact laughably weak and today might even be grounds for a lawsuit. This adviser questioned Kimmerer's competence throughout her entire undergraduate career on the basis of her identity. She includes the quotation from the letter of recommendation not to show her appreciation, but rather to show just how wrong he was.
In fact, especially to the reader who comes to Braiding Sweetgrass in the wake of its huge success, this is a moment of dramatic irony as well as verbal irony. The adviser doubts Kimmerer will make a good scientist because she is "too Indian." What he does not realize is that Kimmerer will be wildly successful partially because she deftly brings her Indigenous perspective to science. It was no doubt disheartening, to say the least, for Kimmerer to have such a dismissive and prejudiced adviser during college. However, in this moment, she turns the advisor's own ignorance into a joke on him.
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