Thursday, February 9, 2012

Grandison and His Irony

The Passing of Grandison
There are TONS of ironic points in this story. Chesnutt laid alot of racial aspect out on the line as well. The first ironic point that I noticed was a situational irony, the Yankee man went down south and took a slave to Canada to free him. Little did he know he sacrificed his own freedom for someone else's freedom. After taking the negro slave to Canada he was placed into a penitentiary and died later on. So in freeing one man he was then without freedom.

SITUATIONAL IRONY: ", a young white man from Ohio, moved by compassion for the sufferings of a certain bondman who happened to have a "hard master," essayed to help the slave to freedom. The attempt was discovered and frustrated; the abductor was tried and convicted for slave-stealing, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary. His death, after the expiration of only a small part of the sentence, from cholera contracted while nursing stricken fellow prisoners"

As for the verbal irony it is plastered all over the short story. I have decided to highlight the verbal irony that arose at the end of the story. although technically it happened throughout the whole piece the reader didn't know it was irony until the end. Whenever Grandison said something along the lines of he would never want to be free or he just wants to go home that was verbally ironic. He is wanting to go home to retrieve his family them leave but that is something that he is choosing to not say to his master obviously which is what really makes it ironic.

VERBAL IRONY: ""Let's go back ober der ribber, Mars Dick. I's feared i'll lose you ovuh heah, an' den i won' hab no marster, an' won't nebber be able to git back home no mo'.""

1 comment:

  1. I think these are two good examples of irony. I wonder, though -- do you think that Grandison knew he was going to escape and come back throughout the story, or was it an idea that grew as he got closer to (or in) Canada?

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