IRONY IN CHARLES DICKEN'S OLIVER TWIST

Ika Kana Trisnawati, Sarair Sarair, Maulida Rahmi

Abstract


This paper describes the types of irony used by Charles Dickens in his notable early work, Oliver Twist, as well as the reasons the irony was chosen. As a figurative language, irony is utilized to express one’s complex feelings without truly saying them. In Oliver Twist, Dickens brought the readers some real social issues wrapped in dark, deep written expressions of irony uttered by the characters of his novel. Undoubtedly, the novel had left an impact to the British society at the time. The irony Dickens displayed here includes verbal, situational, and dramatic irony. His choice of irony made sense as he intended to criticize the English Poor Laws and to touch the public sentiment. He wanted to let the readers go beyond what was literally written and once they discovered what the truth was, they would eventually understand Dickens’ purposes.

Keywords


Oliver Twist; verbal irony; situational irony; dramatic irony

Full Text:

PDF

References


Dickens, C. (2003). Oliver Twist. London: Penguin Books

Di Yanni, R. (2002). Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry and Drama. New York: McGraw Hill Company

Dramatic Irony. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2017, from https://literarydevices.net/dramatic-irony/

Figure of Speech. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2017, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/figure-of-speech

Irony. (n.d.) Retrieved February 11, 2017 from https://literarydevices.net/irony/

Literature. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2017 from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/literature

Marpaung, Rama R. (2010). An Analysis of Racial Issues in Some Langston Hughes’ Poems, Thesis. Medan: University of North Sumatera. Retrieved from http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/123456789/13371/1/10E00485.pdf

Rahmi, M. (2015). The Literary Analysis of Irony in Oliver Twist: a novel by Charles Dickens, Unpublished Thesis. Banda Aceh: Universitas Muhammadiyah Aceh

Reyes, A., Rosso, P., & Buscaldi, D. (2012). From humor recognition to irony detection: The figurative language of social media. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 74, 1-12.

Roberts, R. M., & Kreuz, R. J. (1994). Why do people use figurative language?. Psychological Science, 5(3), 159-163.

Situational Irony. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2017 from https://literarydevices.net/situational-irony/

Thompson, V. (2014, May 03). What Impact Does the Irony Have Upon the Reader? Retrieved March 03, 2017, from http://education.seattlepi.com/impact-irony-upon-reader-7000.html

Understatement. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2017, from https://literarydevices.net/understatement/

Critical Concepts: Verbal Irony. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2017 from http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/cc-verbal_irony.htm




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v3i2.1026

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


This journal has been viewedtimes.
View full page view stats report here.


All works are licensed under CC-BY

Englisia Journal
© Author(s) 2019.
Published by Center for Research and Publication UIN Ar-Raniry and Department of English Language Education UIN Ar-Raniry.

Indexed by: