Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous Different Roles of Irony in Fussell Different Roles of Irony in Fussell The excessive use of irony throughout World War I literature paints a colorful scheme of thoughtfulness and style. Paul Fussell gives one explanation in The Great War and Modern Memory by stating that the war itself “is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends” (7). Writers obviously realized the irony of war and in turn wrote in this style maybe not by intention, but because it was inescapable. Providing a feeling of sorrow and pity seems to motivate Siegfried Sassoon in his poem titled “The Hero” in which an officer tells a mother that her son was brave although in truthfulness he was a coward: “…For a while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, Because he’d been so brave, her glorious boy. He thought how “Jack,” cold-footed, useless swine, Had panicked down the trench that night the mine Went up at Wicked Corner; how he’d tried To get sent home, and how, at last, he died, Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care Except that lonely woman with white hair” (7). An underlying tone of the irony in this poem points that the soldiers are mere pawns in the war. That “no one seemed to care” allows Sassoon to radiate his own feelings of helplessness. Irony provides dramatization in Wilfred Owens writing. Vivid descriptiveness is a key by-product of this dramatization. In “Insensibility” Owen defines the use of irony often with one line: “Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold” (Norton 164). As for the descriptiveness used by Owen he uses it best in “Anthem for Doomed Youth”: “…Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,- The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires” (165). Interestingly Owen uses irony when writing letters home to his mother. In Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters he writes on 16 January 1917: “Three quarters dead,” then realizing the implications and irony he corrected himself by writing “…I mean each of us ¾ dead…(393)”. Other examples of the accidental use of irony exist throughout WWI literature I’m sure. Fussell argues that the use of irony comes from memory. He states that irony is a tool used to recollect certain events that would otherwise “go unnoticed”. “What assists…recall is precisely the ironic pattern which subsequent vision has laid over the events” (Modern 30). Fussell uses Gunner Charles Bricknall as an example of this “phenomenon”. Bricknall recalls seeing new troops standing along an often-shelled road and telling the recruits about the danger. Bricknall wrote “Ho, what a disaster! We had to go shooting lame horses, putting the dead to the side of the road, what a disaster, which could have been avoid if only the officers had gone into action the hard way. That was something I shall never forget” (31). Fussell continues that “A slaughter by itself is too commonplace for notice. When it makes an ironic point it becomes memorable” (31). Other questions arise when working with irony. Does it make the writer sound educated? No. In Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth irony is a subtlety. For example she writes of other places such as Oxford being much better than home yet upon discovering it firsthand finds it somewhat disappointing. Neither this nor any of the previous examples would help in any way to promote one’s I.Q. level. Can the use of irony be used as a scapegoat to avoid giving gruesome details? In most cases this is true. In The Middle Parts of Fortune the language was more graphic than the time period allowed and was edited for this reason. In using irony one can avoid being specific. Although to argue the other side, irony can allow gruesome details as well. In Blunden’s Undertones of War a lance-corporal was making tea in the trench when Blunden passed by him. A few moments later a shell exploded behind him and upon inspection he wrote, “For him, how could the gobbets of blackening flesh, the earth- wall sotted with blood, with flesh, the eye under the duckboard, the pulpy bone be the only answer? At this moment, while we looked with dreadful fixity at so isolated a horror, the lance-corporal’s brother came round the traverse” (Norton 32). Can literature be understood and enjoyable without the use of irony? Rupert Brooke answers this question in his poetry, often hinting at irony with a simple straightforwardness. Of course literature can be understood without irony, if it were used in every work redundancy would be a problem. In his poem “IV. The Dead” Rupert Brooke gives good example of poetry without irony: “These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvelously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved’ gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this ended” (Brooke 2). Brooke gives a vivid account of life and the actions one goes through while living and simply states at the end of the stanza “All this is ended.” He doesn’t use irony to give an excuse to death. Straightforward writing leaves very little room for imagination where the use of irony tends to allow the reader to fill in the blanks. Fussell states that the use of irony is used in situations. I would have to agree with Fussell due to the examples I have used in this paper fall under this category. He uses an example of a poem published first in December 1913 titled “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?” In which a deceased lady hears digging above her and cannot figure out who it is until her dog gives the secret: Fussell sums it up best when he states that “[c]learly, there are some intersections of literature with life we have taken too little notice of” (7). If we were to look hard enough at our own past and present irony would be littered throughout. Bibliography: Works Cited Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. ---, eds. The Norton Book of Modern War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. Owen, Wilfred. Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters. Handout given in class. Brooke, Rupert. “IV. The Dead.” Bibliomania. Online. Intellos. 5 April 200. Word Count: 1481
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