Understated Irony
The first thing to understand about Leacock is that his entire modus operandi of writing is ironic satire. Or is that satirical irony? At any rate, most of his works are so steeped in irony that nearly every line is directed towards it. But there are individual cases worth noting. Like the understated quality of this example from “The Woman Question.”
“She went on to explain instead that when women have the vote there will be no more poverty, no disease, no germs, no cigarette smoking and nothing to drink but water.
It seemed a gloomy world.”
Is This Irony or What?
The more prevalent example of the use of irony by the author, however, is one that permeates throughout an entire work to the point that some—if not many—may be completely unaware it is even there. “The Amazing Genius of O. Henry” is a title that indicates the content is to be taken at face value. Contextual clues strongly indicate, however, that if a title is itself is intended as ironic then the content is to interpreted as actually meaning just the opposite. The clue here is “carelessness.”
“Marvellous indeed they are. Written off-hand with the bold carelessness of the pen that only genius dare use, but revealing behind them such a glowing of the imagination and such a depth of understanding of the human heart as only genius can make manifest.”
Economics
Thorstein Veblen remains America’s greatest economist and his writing is punctuated with brilliant examples of biting irony that satirizes much of what is held to be conventionally true. Leacock was a student studying economics under Veblen and it is clear he was deeply influence not just by his teacher’s financial theories, but his writing style, as indicated by this excerpt from “Are the Rich Happy?”
“My judgment is that the rich undergo cruel trials and bitter tragedies of which the poor know nothing. In the first place I find that the rich suffer perpetually from money troubles. The poor sit snugly at home while sterling exchange falls ten points in a day. Do they care? Not a bit. An adverse balance of trade washes over the nation like a flood. Who have to mop it up? The rich. Call money rushes up to a hundred per cent, and the poor can still sit and laugh at a ten cent moving picture show and forget it.”
Modernity
“The Laundry Problem: A Yearning for the Good Old Days of the Humble Washerwoman” is a particularly thorny example of irony. It is written by a narrator who is clearly intended to represent the kind of person who always—no matter the subject—believes things used to be better in the old days. In this case, the complain is of modern technology’s inability not just to clean clothes, but to keep the technology from destroying. The complaints are conveyed with such clarity of focus that it is difficult to determine for sure what is being satirized here: the type of good-old-days narrator or modern technology. What is less ambiguous is over-the-top hilarity of the complaints directed toward modern washing techniques:
“I can easily construct in my imagination a vision of what is done when a package of washing is received. The shirts are first sorted out and taken to an expert who rapidly sprinkles them with sulphuric acid…then go to the coloring room where they are dipped in a solution of yellow stain. From this they pass to the machine-gun room where holes are shot in them and from there by an automatic carrier to the hydraulic tearing room where the sleeves are torn out.”
Unexpected Irony
A very common use of irony, generally speaking, is unexpected reply to a question or proposition. Leacock does not engage this particular form of ironic human all that much and perhaps is that rarity which means it all the funnier when he does. One particular use occurs in a story in which the narrator decides to take the negative position on a debate topic: "Resolved: that the bicycle is a nobler animal than the horse."
“I have spent some weeks in completely addicting myself to the use of the horse. I find that
the difference between the horse and the bicycle is greater than I had supposed.
The horse is entirely covered with hair; the bicycle is not entirely covered with hair, except the '89 model they are using in Idaho.”
