Irony in Richard Cory

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Ironic Life of Richard Cory The old adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” can be used more than in the sense of choosing a new book to read. In life, that old adage can be used when making an assumption of a particular person; judging someone without knowing what it is like to live his or her life is just like deciding not read a book because the cover is not favorable. In the poem, entitled “Richard Cory,” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, the townspeople see the prestigious man, Richard Cory, as someone they want to be and envy. However, the townspeople judge Richard Cory by his cover; they never once look deeply into his life. This mistaken judgment leads to tragic irony, and Richard Cory’s life does not seem so fascinating after all. Richard Cory is seen as a celebrity, placed into a higher class far above everyone else, and separated from the regular people of the town. In the first line of the poem, Robinson immediately shows this distinctive separation: “Whenever Richard Cory went down town” (Robinson, 1). Robinson clearly shows that Cory is from the upper part of town and does not visit down town daily. “He was a gentleman from sole to crown” (3). The mention of a crown portrays how prestigious Cory is to the regular folk and how they look up to and admire him as if he were royalty. Robinson clearly presents Richard Cory in the first stanza as a man so famous in the town that he is likened to royalty and set high above everyone else. Because Richard Cory is a man of high class, wealth, knowledge, good looks etc., it is not a surprise that the townspeople were victims of one of the seven deadly sins: envy. Although Cory can be seen as a humble man because “ . . . he was always quietly arrayed, / And he was human when he talked” (5-6), this just made him more desirable to the ladies and more coveted by the men. This envy for Richard Cory’s life is not, in
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