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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
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Bunny Remembered:
When news of Bunny's disappearance and subsequent death reach the students of Hampden college, chaos ensues. Students claim to have been friends with Bunny, and the college president praises Bunny's character, both of which are examples of irony:
People who had never once spoken to him suddenly remembered, with a pang of affection, having seen him throwing sticks to a dog or stealing tulips from a teacher’s garden. “He touched people’s lives,” said the college president, leaning forward to grip the podium with both his hands; and though he was to repeat the exact phrase, in the exact way, two months later at a memorial service for the freshman girl (who’d fared better with a single-edged razor blade than with the poison berries) it was, in Bunny’s case at least, strangely true. He did touch people’s lives, the lives of strangers, in an entirely unanticipated way.
This passage is heavily lined with verbal irony, which can be seen through Richard's tone and use of sarcasm. It is ironic that Hampden students who did not even know Bunny personally mourned him profusely and “remembered” him with sudden "pang[s] of affection"—a phrase that drips with verbal irony as it lambastes these students for disingenuously exaggerating their connections with Bunny in order to cash in on the emotional drama of this moment. The students recall specific instances of Bunny doing something around campus, all of which are stories fabricated by the drama of hysteria. The college president's quote—“he touched people’s lives”—is an instance of situational irony, considering that Bunny was murdered by his own peers with justification. Although Bunny was making an impact on his friends' lives, the novel suggests that he was touching their lives a little too closely for comfort. Moreover, the mention of the freshman girl’s death heightens the irony and serves to undermine Bunny’s death. It is possible that diminishing the grandiosity of Bunny's death is Richard’s way of coping with his role in the murder.
Related Themes:
