IRONY AND THE STATUS OF THE AUSTRALIAN HERO IN TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, BY PETER CAREY

Abstract

True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey, winner of the Booker Prize in 2001, is a novel based on the trajectory of one of Australia’s most cherished historical figures, the bushranger Ned Kelly (1854-1880). Departing from Northrop Frye’s theories on the gradual incursion of irony in Western literature, we examine the manifestation of that literary device in Carey’s novel, paying special attention to the crucial role irony plays in the construction of the novel’s hero. Irony, according to Linda Hutcheon, is a social practice that necessarily involves text, context and interpreter and the formation of what she calls “discursive communities”. Within those communities irony can present itself in different guises. “Verbal irony” is defined by Pierre Schoentjes as the type of irony that occurs within the scope of rhetorical discourse and is a distinctive characteristic of Kelly’s style as a narrator. “Situational irony”, on the other hand, is not materialized in the narrator’s words themselves, but in the manner by which facts are arranged. Our analysis concludes that irony is an expedient that permeates the whole novel, from the title to the main themes and events narrated, influencing even the organization of the narrative focus.