Narayan’s ironic vision of life has endowed him with considerable mastery of irony in its diverse forms. The passage in The Guide, which describes the star-lawyer in an ever interesting and memorable manner offers us superb instances of ‘irony of simple incongruity’ which lies in juxtaposing incongruous or incompatible details (D. C. Muecke, p. 6)7. The veteran lawyer described herein had ‘saved many a neck from the nose’, ‘absolved many a public swindler’ and could ‘prove a whole gang of lawless hooligans to be innocent victims of police conspiracy’. Narayan here juxtaposes incongruous and incompatible details in a very sly and delicate manner without any direct comment—‘absolved’ and ‘swindler’, ‘gang of lawless hooligans’ and ‘innocent victims
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While Pope’s use of this device is satiric in its intention, Narayan’s is not. It may be argued, as Prof. Narsimhaiah has done, that Narayan’s use of irony is also pregnant with satiric insinuations; it also cunningly evinces his ‘contempt for a class which has more often than not flourished on damned lies and dishonest as well as dishonourable means’(C. D. Narasimhaiah, p. 73)9. We, however, are inclined to the view that the examples of irony as juxtaposition in Narayan’s picture of the star lawyer is completely innocuous and has no satiric intent; it merely reveals Narayan’s good-humoured recognition of the fundamental and irremediable contradiction between intention and realization—the intention with which the institutions of police and law have been created and the results that have been fetched by …show more content…
Raju, who has been mistaken for a saint by the simple and credulous villagers, is hiding behind the shrine, contemplating some means of escape from their villages. For, he is no longer able to pull on with the fast that the villagers have thrust upon him, because they thought him to be saint. Just when he is thinking out a plan to steal away from their village, they chance to arrive at the temple in a large crowd to have a darshan of their Swami. It is his conspicuous absence from his seat that occasions this conversation among his
While Pope’s use of this device is satiric in its intention, Narayan’s is not. It may be argued, as Prof. Narsimhaiah has done, that Narayan’s use of irony is also pregnant with satiric insinuations; it also cunningly evinces his ‘contempt for a class which has more often than not flourished on damned lies and dishonest as well as dishonourable means’(C. D. Narasimhaiah, p. 73)9. We, however, are inclined to the view that the examples of irony as juxtaposition in Narayan’s picture of the star lawyer is completely innocuous and has no satiric intent; it merely reveals Narayan’s good-humoured recognition of the fundamental and irremediable contradiction between intention and realization—the intention with which the institutions of police and law have been created and the results that have been fetched by …show more content…
Raju, who has been mistaken for a saint by the simple and credulous villagers, is hiding behind the shrine, contemplating some means of escape from their villages. For, he is no longer able to pull on with the fast that the villagers have thrust upon him, because they thought him to be saint. Just when he is thinking out a plan to steal away from their village, they chance to arrive at the temple in a large crowd to have a darshan of their Swami. It is his conspicuous absence from his seat that occasions this conversation among his