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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
Verbal Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Very Nice Company:
The narrator—who moves between the perspectives of different characters over the course of the story—occasionally channels the thoughts of the upper-class people in town. In the following passage, the narrator takes on this haughty and judgmental tone when discussing the Kelveys, using verbal irony in the process:
They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people’s children!
Here, the narrator describes how the Kelvey girls have a working-class washerwoman mother and a (possibly) imprisoned father, concluding with the verbally ironic statement that the girls are “[v]ery nice company for other people’s children!” This is obviously a sarcastic statement, given the narrator’s judgmental tone throughout the passage, as seen in their description of Mrs. Kelvey’s “awful” status as a washerwoman.
This is one of the many examples of upper-class characters speaking of lower-class characters in cruel and demeaning ways in the story. There's also some situational irony here, too, since the supposedly sophisticated upper-class characters are the ones who act like rude schoolchildren while the Kelveys are nothing but polite.
Related Themes:
