Nevertheless, often in Dickens' works these juxtaposing narrative tones coexist within a single scene, and one very predominant instance of this technique appears in Dickens' use of comic irony. The comic-ironic narrative in novels such as Great Expectations , however, is not so easily defined.
At times, it manifests itself merely in the ironic undertone of the text indicative of an outside authorial voice, and this undertone may become humorous simply because it places the reader in a position in which he or she knows more than the character speaking. The most common examples of such double-voiced narratives occur in Dickens' portrayals of children in which the young characters' innocent outlooks or naiveties attribute a certain playfulness to the author's knowing, matter-of-fact, and often tragic vision of adult society.
However, this comic irony perhaps appears most vividly when Dickens simply throws a bleak or awful situation into comic relief. We see a very clear example of this latter form of comic irony in chapter twenty-three of Great Expectations when Pip has his first, somewhat absurd encounter with the Pocket family:.
After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs — a sagacious way of improving their minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides the baby who might have been either, and the baby's next successor who was as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers much as though those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere for children and had enlisted these: while Mrs.
Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been, as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what to make of them. Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby," said Flopson.
Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head upon the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious concussion. One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and laughed.
Eliot, determined to write a realistic novel about common, everyday people, delves into her memories of her Warwickshire childhood and creates a specific, concrete world peopled with generally plausible figures.
She projects it back in time past the date of her own birth and perhaps sentimentalizes it a little; one wonders whether rural folk in were really as charming as she presents them. And, though she is writing a very serious book, Eliot does not forget as she tended to do in later works that one function of the novelist is to entertain.
So she provides us with something to laugh at with her Bartle Massey and Wiry Ben and hits a nostalgic note with the harvest supper. But most of all, as local color and comic relief, she gives us the inimitable Mrs. Perhaps no tenant's wife in would really tell her aristocratic landlord "you've got Old Harry to your friend. Poyser "have her say out. Previous Characterization in Adam Bede. Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title.
Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? My Preferences My Reading List. Adam Bede George Eliot. Irwine Mrs.
Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it. This was a chapter dedicated solely to Jerry Cruncher.
In this chapter, the most interesting and comic scene is presented. Jerry has such a hard time supporting his family that he resorts to digging up dead bodies in secret to help make ends meet. He tries to hide this by telling his wife and son that he is going fishing, but instead he was actually fishing up for bodies to sell to a surgeon.
Another humorous scene in the story is how he becomes paranoid and begins to hate that his wife prays about him. He believes that she is praying against him. All these peculiarities of Jerry Cruncher are humorous. In conclusion, Dickens uses comic relief to appeal to his readers and change the mood.
Jerry Cruncher is a perfect example of this. His life is a prototype of the poverty during 18th century. Through his characteristics, misfortunes in life, and bizarre actions, Jerry Cruncher was able to provide the reader humorous scenes rather than the chaotic and violent drama of the French Revolution.
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