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Situational Irony
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Chesnutt’s story is unique as it is split up into three discrete parts, with each featuring slightly different writing styles. In Part 1, the narrator shares important background information on Mr. Ryder as well as the Blue Veins Society, in a very straightforward and dry manner. Take the following passage, for example:
[Mr. Ryder’s] features were of a refined type, his hair was almost straight; he was always neatly dressed; his manners were irreproachable, and his morals above suspicion […] He was economical, and had saved money; he owned and occupied a very comfortable house on a respectable street.
The straightforward, formal style of writing here matches Mr. Ryder’s disposition. Mr. Ryder is “refined” and “economical” with “irreproachable” manners, and the language also contains these qualities—the narrator is even-mannered and direct, and the language is not overly flowery.
In Part 2 of the story, Eliza Jane arrives at Mr. Ryder’s house and they discuss her search for her long-lost husband. Here the writing style becomes more varied as Chesnutt tries to capture Eliza Jane’s Black working-class dialect. And, finally, Part 3 is also stylistically unique, as it consists almost entirely of a philosophical and emotional speech that Mr. Ryder gives at the ball. Here the narrator disappears while Mr. Ryder waxes poetic before ultimately revealing his former marriage to Eliza Jane, “the wife of his youth.”
Related Themes:
