Theme Of Irony In The Scarlet Letter

Irony is generally defined as a rhetorical device and literary technique, where what is said on the surface differs entirely from the underlying message. Authors frequently use irony to further emphasize a truth or a central idea, by forcing the audience to stop and think over the events that occur in a story. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a profuse amount of irony to foreshadow upcoming themes in the novel and provide insight to the reader about the contradictions of a character, when their appearance on the surface is not always the true character underneath.
To begin with, Hawthorne uses irony to emphasize the contradiction between a character’s surface appearance and the character in reality, when Dimmesdale is chosen …show more content…
Although Dimmesdale is highly praised and revered by the rest of the crowd, his uncertainty and overwhelming guilt consumes the real him that lies underneath. During Dimmesdale’s exchange with Hester, the irony is evident in his words. He appeals to Hester to reveal the name of her fellow sinner and proclaims, “...for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him?” (Hawthorne 65). While he is putting on this act and concealing his own culpability, Dimmesdale speaks of the guilt knowingly because he understands it firsthand as the sinner. He is speaking his true feelings, in a way so only Hester will understand and not the rest of the society. The irony lies in the fact that despite the guilt that he buries away from the eyes of the crowd, he is highly praised and revered by the rest of the community while Hester, who is much braver and sacrifices herself to protect Dimmesdale, gets shunned by rest of the townspeople. Although, private guilt seems to be less of a punishment than public shame and guilt, in reality, it carries a much larger consequence than the worst of public shame. As seen in the text, Dimmesdale chooses to …show more content…
Utilizing irony to foreshadow upcoming events in the novel allows his audience to better understand the events of the book, and anticipate what is to come further along the plotline. Additionally, Hawthorne uses irony to effectively convey various themes to his readers pertaining to the contrast between public vs private sin and also uses irony to emphasize the idea that not everything is truly as it may seem on its surface