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Definition of Verbal Irony
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging outside and someone remarks "what... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean... read full definition
Chapter 7 – The Interrogation
Explanation and Analysis—Villefort's "Goodness":
In Chapter 7, Dantès faces the first horrors of his wrongful imprisonment as he discusses his interrogation with Villefort, in an exchange that includes both verbal and dramatic irony:
‘Monsieur, your interrogation has brought up the most serious charges against you, so I am no longer able, as I had first hoped, to set you free immediately. Before I can take that step, I must consult the examining magistrates. Meanwhile, you have seen how I have treated you.’
‘Oh, yes, Monsieur,’ Dantès exclaimed, ‘and I thank you, because you have been more of a friend to me than a judge.’
‘Well, I must keep you prisoner a little while longer, but for as short a time as I can. The main charge against you is the existence of this letter, and you see …’
Villefort went over to the fireplace, threw the letter into the fire and waited until it was reduced to ashes. ‘ … and you see, I have destroyed it.’
‘Monsieur!’ Dantès exclaimed. ‘You are more than justice, you are goodness itself!’
Dantès has no reason to suspect the cruelty of Villefort's machinations against him, and yet the reader has every reason to doubt this supposed act of benevolence, benefitting from the perspective of Dumas's omniscient narrator and privy to Villefort's personal political allegiances and anxieties after the dinner scene portrayed in Chapter 6. The extent of Dantès's gratitude to Villefort—whom he calls "goodness itself"—further builds the dramatic irony of this scene.
Dantès's many interactions with the law and the danger of a corrupt judicial system form the core of the Count of Monte Cristo. The interactions between Villefort and Dantès in Chapter 7, which lead directly to Dantès's imprisonment so that Villefort may ensure the security of his own career, form the foundation of Dantès's eventual quest for justice as the Count.
Related Themes:
Chapter 105 – The Pere Lachaise Cemetery
Explanation and Analysis—The Rhetoric of Eulogy:
In Chapter 105, the funeral for Valentine takes place at the Père Lachaise cemetery. In Dumas's account, a series of rhetorically masterful but emotionally empty eulogies follow that lavish Valentine with praise for supposedly upholding justice on behalf of the criminals her father, Villefort, would prosecute. The eulogies make heavy use of irony and metaphor:
Some had been found who were ingenious enough to have discovered that the young woman had more than once implored M. de Villefort on behalf of guilty men over whose head the sword of justice was suspended.
This observation is rife with verbal irony. Not only is Valentine alive, but Dumas certainly does not mean to praise the "genius" of these mourners. Their "discovery" of Valentine's good deeds, that is to say, is a fabrication made for the sake of appealing to the emotion of the moment. Mimicking the melodrama of the speeches themselves, Dumas mocks the speakers with an overwrought metaphor: justice transforms into a sword suspended like an executioner's blade over the heads of the guilty. Playful or not, this is a loaded comparison, given that the highly corrupt Villefort wields his legal practice like a weapon against his enemies—including the Count himself, who just so happens to wield both figurative and literal swords of his own against everyone who wronged him. In The Count of Monte Cristo, justice is not an abstract idea but rather something to be used, something to wield, something to execute.
Related Themes:
