Download Examples of Irony in “Time Enough at Last” The first example of

Examples of Irony in “Time Enough at Last”
The first example of irony in TV episode "Time Enough at Last" is a situational irony. In this
example, the irony is that the outcome of the situation is very different from what was expected. Henry
Bemis, a bank teller who loves books and is dreaming of being left alone so that he can enjoy them in
solitude, finds himself alone among the ruins of the world after a global nuclear disaster. In shock, he
discovers that he is the only survivor of the catastrophe, all the people, including those who gave him a
hard time about reading are gone. Even though he has plenty of food to last him for years he realizes
that he has nobody to share it with. That makes him feel so lonely and hopeless that he decides to
commit a suicide. He finds a gun and is determined to pull the trigger. The irony of this episode reflects
the theme “be careful what you wish for”. All his life Henry was surrounded by people who prevented
him from fulfilling his greatest passion - reading. His wife, his boss, his customers, they all had demands
on his time, so all he dreamt about was to be left alone. Ironically, his wish came true and he was the
only person left alive in the world. However, when one expected him to be overjoyed, he realized that
being alone was very lonely and he did not want to live like that. Henry Bemis understood that what he
really wanted was peace and quiet, not loneliness. He wanted to have time to read books, but not to be
alone. This unexpected twist of events creates the situational irony.
The second example of irony in "Time Enough at Last" is also a situational irony. In this example,
irony results from recognizing the unfairness of a given situation. When Henry Bemis is about to pull the
trigger he notices ruins of a library and it gives him a will to live, so he changes his mind. He puts the gun
down and rushes through the rubble to the hole in the library’s wall to rejoice in his newly found
companions – the books. The books appear intact and the library collection is immense. It contains all
the books he always wanted to read and more. Henry is no longer depressed or suicidal. In fact, he is
ecstatic: he has access to all the books he ever wanted and finally all the time in the world to read them!
With pleasure, he meticulously organizes his books into piles by months and years to come: “March,
April, next year, the year after…”. Finally, in great anticipation, he picks up his first book, but accidentally
drops his glasses and the lenses shatter. Without glasses he can’t see anything. His hopes of reading in
peace for years are now shattered too. In shock, he says: "That's not fair. There was time now. There
was all the time I needed...! That's not fair!" Here it looks like Henry Bemis is punished by the
circumstances for being a selfish and irresponsible person. Before the explosion he was a poor employee
and a poor husband. He could not meet anybody’s expectation and he did not do his job well, because
he could think of nothing else but reading. He read ketchup labels at the dinner table at home instead of
keeping a conversation with his wife, which hurt her feelings. He shortchanged customers at the bank,
because he was distracted by reading a book while servicing them. So here the situational irony is
reinforced by the fact that the situation that seems terribly unfair from Henry’s point of view is fair in a
big scheme of things.