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Definition of Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given situation, and that of the... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a character's understanding of a given... read full definition
Dramatic irony is a plot device often used in theater, literature, film, and television to highlight the difference between a... read full definition
Book 4, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—The Strawberry Reveal:
In Book 4, Chapter 15, Fielding whisks his story toward a triumphant and happy ending. In a moment of particular dramatic irony, Fielding resolves the question of Joseph Andrews's lineage by revealing his strawberry birthmark:
The Pedlar […] asked her if the supposititious Child had no mark on its Breast? To which she answered, ‘Yes, he had as fine a Strawberry as ever grew in a Garden.’ This Joseph acknowledged, and unbuttoning his Coat, at the Intercession of the Company, shewed to them. ‘Well,’ says Gaffar Andrews, who was a comical sly old Fellow, and very likely desired to have no more Children, than he could keep, ‘you have proved, I think, very plainly that this Boy doth not belong to us; but how are you certain that the Girl is ours?’
To the reader, this mark will have been familiar from all the way back in Book 3, Chapter 4, when Mr. Wilson reveals that his lost son would be readily identifiable by the birthmark. While it takes the characters in the novel an excruciating few moments to place the mark and what it means about Joseph Andrews's parentage, the reader can instantly identify Andrews to be Wilson's lost son—guaranteeing a satisfying moment of dramatic irony at the very end of Andrews's adventure. Fielding begins his novel by excusing Andrews's lack of clear ancestry—and insisting that he is a worthwhile subject by his inherent virtue—but nonetheless closes out the narrative by giving Andrews his family back.
