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Imagery
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 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.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Abundant Thanks:
In Chapter 11, Kimmerer describes the impatience she has noticed among non-Native people when reciting the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. She uses verbal irony to create pathos in defense of practicing gratitude:
My own students profess to cherish the opportunity to share this experience of the Thanksgiving Address, and yet it never fails that one or a few comment that it goes on too long. “Poor you,” I sympathize. “What a pity that we have so much to be thankful for.”
When Kimmerer says, "What a pity that we have so much to be thankful for," she in fact means the opposite. It is not a pity, but rather a blessing that there is so much to be thankful for. This verbal irony draws attention to the fact that there is only an opportunity for a group of people to recite a long Thanksgiving Address when they have received abundant gifts. Abundance and thanksgiving go hand in hand. The students who complain look foolish in this light because, essentially, they are wishing for a reality in which they received fewer gifts so that they could spend less time expressing thanks.
And yet, there is also a minor note of sincerity in Kimmerer's comment. She "sympathize[s]" with the students' restlessness, or at least with the notion that the address does go on for a long time. It is not effortless to offer such a long Thanksgiving Address. This is part of the point. The light shaming she accomplishes with her verbal irony is directed not only toward the impatient students, but also to the reader and even to herself. This pathos is a reminder that the Thanksgiving Address is a not an empty gesture but rather a concerted act of gratitude and reciprocity that we owe. The world has given us many gifts, and the least we can do in return is take some of our precious time to give thanks.
Related Themes:
Chapter 27
Explanation and Analysis—Case Dismissed:
In Chapter 27, Kimmerer cites a case the Onondaga Nation brought against the Honeywell corporation and several other entities on behalf of the Onondaga Lake region. She uses pathos to demonstrate how urgent and reasonable the case was and to underscore the situational irony of the court ruling:
Clan Mother Audrey Shenandoah made the goal clear. It is not casinos and not money and not revenge. “In this action,” she said, “we seek justice. Justice for the waters. Justice for the four-leggeds and the wingeds, whose habitats have been taken. We seek justice, not just for ourselves, but justice for the whole of Creation.”
In the spring of 2010, the federal court handed down its ruling on the Onondaga Nation’s suit. The case was dismissed.
The Onandaga Nation and activist groups have fought a long legal battle against Honeywell to try to get the company to take responsibility for polluting the land. The Onandaga Nation has an especially strong claim: even the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the land had been illegally taken from them and that they had a right to it. What to do, though, with land that has been destroyed? Honeywell eventually began making some lackluster attempts to clean up, but it was not enough to make amends.
The case Kimmerer describes here was an attempt to get Honeywell and the State of New York to put in real effort to restore the ecosystem. Kimmerer notes that this case did not push for the Onandaga Nation to receive more control over the land, even though they had a legal claim to it. She notes that the case explicitly avoided asking for anyone to be displaced from their home and that the ultimate goal was "justice for the whole of Creation." The Onandaga Nation was asking the court to demand that the land be restored for the benefit of everyone living there, human or non-human. By emphasizing this goal, Kimmerer draws on the reader's own sense of justice and fairness to convince them that the Onandaga Nation had unimpeachable motives in this case. There was only one just, rational outcome, which was for the court to find in their favor.
Instead, in an ironic twist, the court dismisses the case altogether. It doesn't find in favor of either the Onandaga Nation or Honeywell. What should have been one of the easiest cases in history to decide is instead all but erased from the legal record. Kimmerer leaves white space on the page immediately after this passage. The effect is that the reader must sit with the disappointment and the irony that the Onandaga Nation said to the United States justice system, "we seek justice" for "the whole of Creation," and the justice system—which is, of course, included in Creation—told them to go away.
Related Themes:
