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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
Section 3
Explanation and Analysis—Heavenly Hadleyburg:
In Section 3, a massive crowd gathers in Hadleyburg to witness the Reverend Burgess reveal the rightful inheritor of the sack of gold. To kick things off, Burgess gives a melodramatic speech in which he waxes poetic about the treasure and the town entrusted with its care. Despite his hyperbolic insistence on the value of the sack and the virtue of Hadleysburg, Burgess's speech fosters a sense of dramatic irony in the reader:
He related the curious history of the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of Hadleyburg’s old and well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of the town’s just pride in this reputation. He said that this reputation was a treasure of priceless value; that under Providence its value had now become inestimably enhanced, for the recent episode has spread this fame far and wide, and thus had focused the eyes of the American world upon this village, and made its name for all time, as he hoped and believed, a synonym for commercial incorruptibility.
By now, the reader knows just how deep the moral rot in Hadleysburg goes—every single one of Hadleysburg's nineteen prominent citizens has laid claim to the gold, a crisis that Burgess will shortly discover. Each new instance of hyperbole in this speech—that divine "Providence" herself has "enhanced" the treasure, that Hadleyburg will become immortal in its reputation of "incorruptibility"—just serves to raise the reader's anticipation of the Nineteen's collapse and the world's realization of Hadleyburg's true nature.
"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is ultimately a tale of revenge—one stranger's revenge on the town that once wronged him—and by drawing out the climactic revelation Twain ropes the reader along in the stranger's quest. Both the reader and the stranger are outsiders in this story, and they can only sit back and watch as everything begins to collapse.
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