Question

"If you could just take a few out when you came home from work," said Hazel. "I mean-you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just sit around." "If tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people’d get away with it- and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?" Which statement best explains how irony is used in the passage? A. George is unable to use his reasoning skills because the government handicapped him. B. George prefers a society with limits rather than one that allows him to compete. C. George refers to the year 2081 as the dark ages because people are unable to use their talents. D. Hazel tries to persuade her husband to break a strictly enforced law.

Answer 1

The statement that best explains how irony is used in the passage is D. Hazel tries to persuade her husband to break a strictly enforced law.

In the passage, George mentions that if he were to "get away with" not wearing his handicaps, other people would also try to do the same. He suggests that this would lead to a society where everyone competes against each other, similar to the dark ages. However, Hazel tries to persuade George to remove his handicaps when he comes home from work, implying that she wants him to break the law and avoid the competition imposed by the government.

This creates irony because George, who supports the idea of limits and rules to prevent competition, is faced with his wife encouraging him to break the very limits he believes in. It highlights the contradiction in George's beliefs and actions, adding a layer of irony to the passage.

To summarize, the irony in the passage lies in Hazel's attempt to convince George to break the law, contradicting George's support for limits and rules to prevent competition.