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Irony in “The Passing of Grandison” arises from the understated narrative voice. It also arises from the situational irony that plays out because Dick thinks he is not getting what he wants—Grandison’s freedom and Charity’s approval—when in fact he is getting it, just not on his timetable.
The narrator’s ironic style reveals itself through comments that initially sound neutral and objective. For example, their description of the family’s flight explains in an apparently straightforward manner that the “magnitude of the escaping party” caused their helpers, who “sympathized with the fugitives,” to be especially careful. This language is accurate, but it’s also loaded. The phrases “escaping party” and “fugitives” indicate sympathy with the family as persecuted people. Yet just above, when the narrator describes the colonel’s efforts to track the family, they are described as the colonel sees them: that is, as “valuable property.” The narrator’s use of this phrase underscores how, for the colonel and other slaveholders, the “wholesale nature of the transaction” is upsetting, both to their beliefs about their superiority and to their bottom line. Throughout the story, tongue-in-cheek descriptions provide touches of ironic, and sometimes judgmental, humor.
Chesnutt’s skillful manipulation of the story’s plot, as Dick and Grandison travel north, builds situational irony. Dick, who in his lazy way simply assumes that his plan will work, becomes ever more frustrated with Grandison. In New York, Dick’s hopes are “doomed” when Grandison seems not to catch the “virus of freedom.” In Boston, Dick silently “cursed the stupidity” of this man who apparently refuses freedom. When they reach Canada, Dick feels “great disgust” when Grandison refuses to leave him. Yet all along, as readers begin to suspect, Grandison is doing exactly what Dick hopes he will, in his own way and on his own schedule.
