Which sentence in this excerpt from Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" best exhibits the use of verbal irony?

A) Before, I had never experienced aught but a not unpleasing sadness.

B) Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nutshell.

C) So he sent him to my office, as student at law, errand boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week.

D) For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.

Question

English

Xiomara Velez

2 September, 05:59

Which sentence in this excerpt from Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" best exhibits the use of verbal irony?

A) Before, I had never experienced aught but a not unpleasing sadness.

B) Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nutshell.

C) So he sent him to my office, as student at law, errand boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week.

D) For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.

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Answers (1)

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Carlos Dougherty · Answer 1

You can eliminate C and D right away as they are statements of fact.

You are left with A and B. On a closer look at A you find that the phrase "not unpleasing sadness" is a double negative which means that it was a pleasing sadness.

B is a description.

Answer: A