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Hyperbole
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
Act 2
Explanation and Analysis—"God Help You":
In Act 2, four girls attend the pub to meet Christy, at which point Pegeen uses verbal irony to express her jealousy:
CHRISTY. very miserably.—Oh, God help me. Are you thinking I’m safe? You were saying at the fall of night, I was shut of jeopardy and I here with yourselves.
PEGEEN. severely.—You’ll be shut of jeopardy no place if you go talking with a pack of wild girls the like of them do be walking abroad with the peelers, talking whispers at the fall of night.
CHRISTY. with terror.—And you’re thinking they’d tell?
PEGEEN. with mock sympathy.—Who knows, God help you.
The bit of verbal irony here is "Who knows, God help you." In this scene, Pegeen suggests that the four girls will "whisper" the news of Christy's patricide across the country, and Christy begins to worry that he will get in trouble. Pegeen responds to his "misery" and "terror" with "mock sympathy." When she says, "God help you," she is simply repeating Christy's earlier invocation back to him; she offers only a curtly ironic mockery rather than a more sympathetic or genuine kind of reassurance. She does this because she hates the fact that other girls are attracted to Christy. Despite her engagement to Shawn, she wants to get together with the dangerous playboy.
Related Themes:
