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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
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.
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