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Imagery
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
Chapter 13: Ice Cream
Explanation and Analysis—Suicide Weather:
Chapter 13 begins with the following instance of situational irony, introducing Daisy's suicide:
It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. Daisy had killed herself the week before.
The juxtaposition of a beautiful, "hopeful" spring day described with lovely, flowery prose and the blunt statement that it's "suicide weather" creates irony because the ideas are dissonant and complicate one another. This dynamic illuminates Susanna's experience and the experience of mental illness in general.
From the ward, Susanna sees even the most sunny, hopeful day as one of desperation and despair. She does not get to participate in life the same way other people "on the outside" do, and so beautiful days that others can enjoy can be bleak for her, made all the more bleak by how beautiful they are. She also associates the warm, breezy spring weather with Daisy's suicide. Kaysen thus reminds the reader that life can contradict itself.
Kaysen writes often about how mental illness defies logic and reason; it might not make logical sense that beautiful weather would be "suicide weather," but when you suffer from mental illness, even the brightest days can be the darkest ones.
Related Themes:
Chapter 25: Calais is Engraved on My Heart
Explanation and Analysis—Alice's New Face:
When Susanna and the other girls visit Alice Calais in maximum security solitary confinement in Chapter 25, they find her and her room covered in her own feces. Kaysen recalls the scene using situational irony that doubles as unreliable narration:
Alice looked like somebody else, as if she’d gotten a new face. She looked kind of good.
The situational irony of this scene rests in the ridiculousness of the notion that Alice looks her best when locked in a room and covered in her own fecal matter. The stark dissonance between the situation and Susanna's reaction creates a bit of dark humor that critiques the way society prioritizes a woman's looks over her wellbeing. Kaysen reminds us that even in a mental health crisis, beauty is king.
This passage is also a moment when Kaysen demonstrates an awareness of her status as an unreliable narrator. It's farfetched that the average person would actually think Alice looked good while covered in her own feces. As a result of her mental illness, it's always a question throughout the book whether or not Susanna is seeing things clearly, and Kaysen constantly asks the reader outright to question this. The absurdity of this situation leads the reader to ask if Kaysen is simply goading them into thinking she's unreliable as a way of satirizing public perceptions of those with mental illness.
Related Themes:
