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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 7
Explanation and Analysis—Not Your Bathroom:
In Chapter 7, Aibileen tries to teach Mae Mobley how to use the toilet by herself. Mae refuses to use the toilet inside the house, insisting that she wants to use Aibileen's bathroom in the garage. Mae has no problem using the toilet there and seems to enjoy sharing the experience with "Abie." When Elizabeth comes home, she wants to see Mae use the bathroom, so she brings her to the one inside the house. Mae screams and takes off across the house to the garage. In a moment of dramatic irony, while Mae has no problem with the bathroom in the garage, Elizabeth scolds her severely for using it:
She got the back door open, she in the garage, trying to reach the knob to my bathroom. We run after her and Miss Leefolt pointing her finger. Her voice go about ten pitches too high.
“This is not your bathroom!” Baby Girl wagging her head.
“My bafroom!” Miss Leefolt snatch her up, give her a pop on the leg.
“Miss Leefolt, she don’t know what she do—”
“Get back in the house, Aibileen!” I hate it, but I go in the kitchen. I stand in the middle, leave the door open behind me.
“I did not raise you to use the colored bathroom!” I hear her hiss-whispering, thinking I can’t hear, and I think, Lady, you didn’t raise your child at all. “This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You’ll catch diseases! No no no!” And I hear her pop her again and again on her bare legs.
Mae Mobley is unaware of the racist implications of the separate bathroom. She uses the bathroom because she happens to prefer it and wants to use the same one as Aibileen. Mae doesn't understand racism the way the other characters do, so she doesn't realize the implications of her, a White girl, using Aibileen's bathroom. Elizabeth beats Mae for using the garage bathroom because Aibileen also uses it. This dramatic irony, in which Mae lacks knowledge about the racism that other characters exhibit, shows the absurdity of segregation from a child's perspective.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—It's For You:
Throughout the novel, Skeeter tries to stop smoking cigarettes, but the stress of the novel makes it difficult to stop. In Chapter 12, she smokes in her parents' kitchen "because it’s about the only room in the house without a ceiling fan to blow ashes everywhere." This leads Skeeter to recount a story of when her father, Carlton, tried to install a ceiling fan in the kitchen without telling Constantine. In a moment of dramatic irony, Constantine knows that this will only lead to a mess, but Carlton seems ignorant of this reality:
“It’s for you, Constantine, so you don’t get so hot being up in the kitchen all the time.”
“I ain’t working in no kitchen with no ceiling fan, Mister Carlton.”
“Sure you will. I’m just hooking up the current to it now.”
Daddy climbed down the ladder. Constantine filled a pot with water.
“Go head,” she sighed. “Turn it on then.”
Daddy flipped the switch. In the seconds it took to really get going, cake flour blew up from the mixing bowl and swirled around the room, recipes flapped off the counter and caught fire on the stovetop. Constantine snatched the burning roll of parchment paper, quickly dipped it in the bucket of water. There’s still a hole where the ceiling fan hung for ten minutes.
Constantine clearly understands exactly what will happen if Carlton installs a ceiling fan in the kitchen: it will blow things around and make a dangerous mess. Carlton, who has never had to spend time in a kitchen in his life, does not know this. This discrepancy in knowledge results in dramatic irony. This moment speaks to how thoroughly separated domestic tasks were in traditional southern homes; Constantine's beleaguered acceptance also gives a window into her strained relationship with the Phelan family.
Related Themes:
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Jesus In There:
In Chapter 17, Minny finds Celia drinking out of an unmarked bottle. Celia sits alone in her bedroom, solemnly sipping, surrounded by empties. Minny is certain that Celia is an alcoholic and that her substance abuse is the cause of her unusual and erratic behavior. Celia seems to be lost in a drunken haze, as Minny describes using a simile, and the scene eventually comes to present a certain degree of situational irony:
Miss Celia picks a bottle up and looks at it like it’s Jesus in there and she can’t wait to get saved. She uncorks it, sips it, and sighs. Then she drinks three hard swallows and lays back on her fancy pillows.
Minny gives an evocative description of the addict's reverence for their drug of choice: Celia looks at the bottle "like it's Jesus in there and she can't wait to get saved." Celia never appears to be especially religious in the novel, so Minny interprets this as an unusual level of devotion for her boss. Minny is thoroughly annoyed by this discovery, given that she has had to care for multiple alcoholics in her working life. This annoyance makes the simile coolly ironic, as Minny disparages Celia's seemingly religious faith in alcohol.
Minny will later question why Celia still drinks whiskey while she is trying to have a baby. But, as is later revealed, these bottles do not have whiskey in them, but Chocktaw "catch tonic," a mixture of molasses and water. The mixture was supposed to make it more likely that Celia would conceive. Later, the reader understands that Celia looks at the bottle "like it’s Jesus in there" because she wants desperately to have a child and seemingly cannot. The novel's strict first-person perspective hides this truth until later, relying on Minny's perception of the moment.
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