Irony

In keeping with the medieval literary traditions he based this book upon, Tennyson makes heavy use of irony to motivate his stories. It should be understood that irony, in this context, simply refers to a situation in which a character acts one way under some belief which the reader knows to be false. Examples of irony abound through these stories. In "Gareth and Lynette," Lynette is disgusted by Gareth because she thinks he is a "kitchen-knave," though in reality he is a prince. In "The Marriage of Geraint" and "Geraint and Enid," Geraint is under the false impression that Enid is being unfaithful to him and it nearly drives them apart. In "Balin and Balan," the two brothers kill one another as the result of double irony. Balin believes Balan to be one of the men from Sir Galron's castle trying to kill him; Balan believes Balin to...