Irony In Small World

David Lodge is a famous British novelist, who is a pre-eminent literary critic at the same time. Among his novels, Small World is a masterpiece. In this novel, David Lodge skillfully puts the theory of irony into practice, and gives a description of the modern scholars'life with an ironic attitude. The application of irony is much helpful for the characterization, structure and comic effect of the novel. This thesis attempts to make a study of David Lodge's application of irony in his Small World, from the perspectives of verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony, which are three basic types of irony.The thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, consisting of two parts: the first part is a brief bibliography of David Lodge and the literature review on his Small World; the second part is a presentation of the purpose and organization of the thesis.In Chapter Two, the theories of irony are given, including dictionary definitions of irony, a brief review of the evolution of the concept of irony, the classification and the pragmatic functions of irony.In the third chapter, an overview of the application of irony in Small World is illustrated and the emphasis will be put on the ironic aspects of some main characters in the novel, including Persse McGarrigle, Morris Zapp and Phillip Swallow, etc.The fourth chapter is on the verbal irony in Small World, including verbal irony in the characterization and the scene description respectively, with a number of cases. Through the ironic language used in presenting the characters'words and deeds, together with the description of the ironic scenes, David Lodge's ironical attitude towards those characters is reflected.The fifth chapter is about the dramatic irony in Small World, based on two sub-plots: Persse McGarrigle's pursuit of Angelica and Morris'being kidnapped. Dramatic irony plays an important role in portraying the characters'ignorance and ridiculousness, evoking a comic atmosphere. The sixth chapter is on the situational irony in Small World, consisting of two parts according to the two basic types of irony: irony of events and irony of incongruity. The former part is a narration of three main characters'love and career in which irony of events is reflected, and the latter part includes the incongruity between the characters'theories and their real lives, and the analysis of some scene description which is filled with irony of incongruity.Chapter Seven is the conclusion, in which the author will give a summary of the main points of the thesis and concludes that three kinds of irony---verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony---are employed in Small World. In addition, the author will point out that the irony in Small World needs further exploration.