Graded assignment
irony, sarcasm, and paradox
total score: of 20 points
read the passages given and answer the questions in complete sentences to identify the literary techniques used.
passage: again i say: it is a foolish question. the answer means nothing. and yet it is a question that has been asked so often—that has caused so much talk and doubt and misunderstanding—that i feel, after long thought, that the answer must be given. as will be clear, it is not for my own sake that i give it. nor is it for hillary’s. it is for the sake of everest—the prestige of everest—and for the generations who will come after us. “why,” they will say, “should there be a mystery to this thing? is there something to be ashamed of? to be hidden? why can we not know the truth? ” very well: now they will know the truth. everest is too great, too precious, for anything but the truth.
(score for question 1: of 2 points)
1. how is paradox used in this passage? identify and explain it.
type your answer here.
(score for question 2: of 3 points)
2. what effect does using this literary technique have on the passage? explain.
type your answer here.
passage: beyond them, and around us on every side, were the great himalayas, stretching away through nepal and tibet. for the closer peaks—giants like lhotse, nuptse and makalu—you now had to look sharply downward to see their summits. and farther away, the whole sweep of the greatest range on earth—even kanchenjunga itself—seemed only like little bumps under the spreading sky. it was such a sight as i had never seen before and would never see again: wild, wonderful and terrible. but terror was not what i felt. i loved the mountains too well for that. i loved everest too well. at that great moment for which i had waited all my life my mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living. she was a mother hen, and the other mountains were chicks under her wings. i too, i felt, had only to spread my own wings to cover and shelter the brood that i loved.
(score for question 3: of 2 points)
3. how is paradox used in this passage? identify and explain it.
type your answer here.
(score for question 4: of 2 points)
4. how is irony used in this passage? identify and explain it.
type your answer here.
(score for question 5: of 6 points)
5. what effect does using these literary techniques have on the passage? explain.
type your answer here.
passage: also, he gives the impression that it was only he who really climbed it on his own, and that he then practically pulled me, so that i “finally collapsed exhausted at the top, like a giant fish when it has just been hauled from the sea after a terrible struggle.” since then i have heard plenty about that “fish,” and i admit i do not like it.
(score for question 6: of 2 points)
6. how is sarcasm used in this passage? identify and explain it.
type your answer here.
(score for question 7: of 3 points)
7. what effect does using this literary device have on the passage? explain.
type your answer here.