Post 1: The use of Irony
Both types of irony are deployed throughout Chestnutt’s “The Passing of Grandison.”
Verbal Irony:
On page 237, when Dick states " He deserves a leather medal made out of his own hide tanned." This seems to be a vary strange way to reward someone, for doing the right thing. I think this represents how frustrated Dick was with the fact that he cannot achieve his purpose of getting Grandison to runaway.
On page 236,Dick tells Grandson that " this is the chance of your life to go around among your own people and see how they live." This is a strange thing to state to a slave since in these times slaves where considered property that could be sold and yet Dick is referring to "his people" and the way that they live, while back home Dicks' family owns slaves. It seems strange to me that he doesn't agree with the abolitionists and their way of thinking, since he obviously views them as people and not just something to be owned.
Situational Irony:
Page 237, show an example of situational irony when Dick writes a letter to his father and the father states to a friend, "that Dick out to have the nigger interviewed by the Boston papers, so they may see how contented and happy our darkeys are." Although the irony does not come until the entire story is read, when Grandison returns to take his family back with him to freedom, and uses the fathers opinions to his advantage.
On page page 234, is another example of situational irony. The father has Grandison brought to him and he begins asking him a series of questions: "Grandison, said the colonel, when the negro stood before him, hat in hand.
"Yas,marster."
"Haven't I always treated you right?"
"Yas, marster."
Haven't you always got all you wanted to eat?"
"Yas, marster."
"And as much whiskey and tobacco as was food for you, Grandison?
"Y-as-,marster."
"I should just like to know, Grandison, whether you don't think yourself a great deal better off than those poor free negroes down by the plank road, with no kind master to look after them and no mistress to give them medicine they're sick and-"
This entire conversation is ironic for many reasons, Grandison cannot not answer honestly, due to the repercussions he would receive if he had said no and voiced his own opinion. Grandison, also has no knowledge of what life may be like if he was not a slave and has only one view point to answer this question. When the Colonel implies that Grandison and the other slaves are better off because he is a caring person and shows this in the way that he takes care of them, is undermined by the fact that he cares for them because they are his property and if he doesn't then he will lose financailly.
A few thoughts in reference to this:
ReplyDelete"It seems strange to me that he [Dick] doesn't agree with the abolitionists and their way of thinking, since he obviously views them as people and not just something to be owned."
I'm not sure that we have any proof that Dick doesn't agree with abolitionism. Of course, his family owns slaves, but Dick seems very unconcerned about the family "business." He also is trying to help Grandison escape (an action with not the purest of motives, to be sure).
But for this to be an instance of verbal irony, we need to know that Dick doesn't actually see slaves as "people." I think there's a lot of evidence to the contrary, that he does in fact see Grandison at the very least as a person.
That's what makes this story so great, I think. Dick is an interesting character, in that we're never quite sure what he is thinking, what his motives are, and where he stands on questions such as these.