In A Christmas Carol (1843), Dickens describes Scrooge with a list of harsh verbs (“squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping”), a simile (“solitary as an oyster”) and imagery of cold. The narrator's comic exaggeration condemns Scrooge's meanness.
In “Ozymandias” (1818), Shelley shows the ruins of a statue of a proud king. The inscription “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” is ironic, because “Nothing beside remains.”
Context helps: Dickens wrote during a time of great poverty in Victorian England; Shelley was a Romantic poet who questioned tyranny and power.
Worked example
What is ironic about the inscription on the statue of Ozymandias?
- The king boasts that his works will make others despair.
- But his works have vanished into the sand.
Answer:He boasts of eternal power, yet nothing remains of it.
Key words
- irony
- a contrast between what is said and what is true
- Victorian
- the period of Queen Victoria, 1837–1901
- tyranny
- cruel and unfair rule
New questions every time.
Common Core-referenced: RL.9-10.4, RL.9-10.1