Irony and Humour in Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Abstract

Human absurdities are exposed using irony which is a weapon of ridicule. Irony arises from the contrast - contrast between the surface meaning of a statement and the real or the intended meaning of it. It may also be a contrast between what a person says and what he does, that is, between pretence and reality. Humour has comic irony as its principal source. Including Persuasion, irony is all pervasive in the novels of Jane Austen and indeed, irony was her forte. Delicate, ruthless irony is the very essence of her style.

Jane Austen was a born storyteller. Faithful observation, personal detachment and a fine sense of ironic comedy are among Jane Austen’s chief characteristics as a writer. Folly, she ridicules wherever she finds it, sin, she excuses wherever she can and does not pretend to be a social reformer. She had complete mastery as an artist over her material. Austen was a realist and she drew her materials from actual life as she sees it. If they are considered from the point of view of story or characters or setting, realism can be found as the keynote of her novels. There is nothing fantastic, fanciful or far-fetched in her works thus she being a practitioner of the domestic novel or the novel of manners.