The Irony of the 'Gun Signals'
The gun echoes do not elicit the projected consequence: Adam More expounds, “We were rowing for our lives, and we knew it; but every moment our situation grew more desperate. Each new report of the gun seemed to sound farther away. We seemed always to be rowing in the wrong direction. At each report we had to shift the boat's course somewhat, and pull toward the last point from which the gun seemed to sound.” The gun signals do not qualify Adam and Agnew to locate their mates; instead they row towards the erroneous bearing. The ironic repercussion deduces that wind is persuasive in sailing for it regulates the course that a boat or ship would chart. Accordingly, seafaring in contradiction of the wind would be unworkable. The gun indications would have been operative if the wind were approving. Nevertheless the irony adds to the plot by sanctioning Adam and Agnew to sightsee other terrains which would not have been feasible if they had located their ship painlessly.
The Irony of Fire
In the chapter “A World of Fire and Desolation” Adam More writes, “At the sight of that deep-red glow various feelings arose within us: in me there was new dejection; in Agnew there was stronger hope. I could not think but that it was our ship that was on fire, and was burning before our eyes. Agnew thought that it was some burning forest, and that it showed our approach to some habitable and inhabited land. For hour after hour we watched, and all the time the current drew us nearer, and the glow grew brighter and more intense.” Their perceptions convinces them that they are beholding real fire. However, later they discern, “It was no burning ship, no blazing forest, no land inhabited by man: those blazing peaks were two volcanoes in a state of active eruption, and at that sight I knew the worst.” The apprehension portrays the discrepancy between realism and slanted discernments. Agnew’s sanguinity concerning the fire and prospect of discovering ‘inhabited land’ renders him a romanticist who would not certainly misplace hopefulness. However, the practicality of a dynamic volcano upsurges the jeopardies that they are presently tackling which would not be moderated by any degree of positivity.
The Irony of Land
In “A World Of Fire And Desolation” Adam more narrates, “Here the ice and snow ended. We thus came at last to land; but it was a land that seemed more terrible than even the bleak expanse of ice and snow that lay behind, for nothing could be seen except a vast and drear accumulation of lava-blocks of every imaginable shape, without a trace of vegetation—uninhabited, uninhabitable, and unpassable to man. But just where the ice ended and the rocks began there was a long, low reef, which projected for more than a quarter of a mile into the water, affording the only possible landing-place within sight.” Allowing for the distress they have encountered with inescapable ‘ice and snow’ Adam and Agnew would be projected to be enchanted to arrive at land. However, the dreadfulness of land must be astonishing for it to eclipse the horror which the ‘ice and snow’ personify. The ironic comparative scrutiny conjectures that not all land territories are practically secured than ‘ice and snow.’
