Comparative Analysis Of The Art Of Irony In Pride And Prejudice And Emma

Irony is the most distinct feature and keynote of Jane Austen’s novels. Pride andPrejudice and Emma are well-known for the art of irony, and Austen’s subtle use of irony inthe two classic novels is most worth pondering. This thesis reviews the previous relatedresearch home and abroad, and it is not difficult to find that most of researchers pay moreattention to exploring Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, while few people research her two ironynovels, Emma and Pride and Prejudice, at the same time.This paper, based on the two masterpieces of irony, attempts to research from the angle oftext rather than of the author. This thesis intends to contrast and analyze the art of irony fromthe language, theme, scene, figures and the framework of irony. It adopts the combination oftheoretical explanation and corpus analysis as research methods, and the data of irony areselected from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma. By applying verbal irony, dramaticirony and situational irony, this paper not only analyzes the language irony, but alsothoroughly analyzes the specific application of ironic techniques and features, especially thetypical application of irony in conversations, through which the author exposes thecontradiction between the characters and displays figures of different personality traits,highlights the art of irony as the decisive role in forming the novels’ acerbic, satiric, witty andhumorous language style, and proves that Pride and Prejudice and Emma are typical ofnovels with irony characteristics from the perspective of art effect and fully reveals itsrichness of meaning, diversity of function and complexity of usage, and probes into the artvalue of irony.The thesis consists of six parts:Part one is an introduction, consisting of a brief account of Jane Austen’s life, main works,the general situation of the present study about her irony and the purpose and significance ofthe study.Part two elaborates the uses and functions of verbal irony, dramatic irony and situationalirony with specific examples in these two works, and discusses the key role of the three typesof iron in novels.Part three is about irony of conversation among the characters. By referring to a variety ofdifferent types of irony in the dialogues, this paper shows the contribution of the art of ironyto depicting characters, promoting development of plot and displaying theme. Part four is about the theme of these two novels, i.e., love and marriage. Through irony ofdifferent four marriages in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Austen exposes that money andprofit play a key role in the marriage of that time. By taking Wickham and Lydia’s marriageas a counter-example, readers can examine their own views on love and marriage.Part five is about the use of irony in building the framework of the story. Austen uses theironic language, the ironic plot and the ironic mode to design scenes and works out the wholestories, thus the novels embody the characteristics of irony in all dimensions.Part six is a summary of this thesis and draws some conclusions.