earticle

영어

This paper aims to illuminate Hawthorne’s Irony by examining the main characters’ patterns of behavior in The Blithedale Romance. Section II deals with “Dramatic Irony” inherent in the radical reform movement. Section III concerns “Verbal Irony” conveyed by approaching the characters and the events of the book through the narrator, Miles Coverdale’s eyes. Any situation is ironic, to some extent, if it involves the dramatic contrasts between appearance and reality, expectation and event, or intention and accomplishment. Hawthorne presents the irony inherent in the Blithedale’s attempts at naturalness, practicality, and social humility. “Verbal Irony” is closely related to Miles Coverdale’s skepticism and introspection. As an aloof observer, Coverdale explores weaknesses of egotists, faithlessness of lovers, and hubris of the feminist, all of which diminish the lofty purposes of the Blithedale. Coverdale’s inability to do full justice to his Blithedale fellows ironically allows a self-disparagement, the disclosure of character broader and richer than that in the portrait of Hollingsworth and Zenobia. In permitting Coverdale virtually to construct his self, his voice, Hawthorne works off the ironic possibility of a narrater who unconsciously steps beyond the limits which he consciously observes.