Question

Which literary technique is Austen using in mrs. dash wood reference to “wit” in the excerpt

Answer 1

The exact excerpt is:

Mr. Palmer made her no answer, and did not even raise his eyes from the newspaper.

"Mr. Palmer does not hear me," said she, laughing; "he never does sometimes. It is so ridiculous!"

This was quite a new idea to Mrs. Dashwood; she had never been used to find wit in the inattention of any one..."

This excerpt is from Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility. The use of the wit shows the dramatic irony. Wit means cleverness and intelligence. In the excerpt, Mrs. Dashwood ironically mentions that how Mr. Palmer's inattentiveness contains such an intelligence. In reality, it is not an intelligence. One crucial point is that it is a dramatic irony, not a verbal irony. Indeed, the former one shows that the readers are already aware of the situation.  

Answer 2

The answer is verbal irony. Verbal Irony is when words express something in spite of truth or somebody says the opposite they truly feel or mean. Verbal incongruity is frequently snide. Incongruity in which a man says or keeps in touch with a certain something and means another, or utilizes words to pass on an implying that is the inverse of the strict significance. Cases from the Web for verbal incongruity. The verbal incongruity in the story would have played well in the primary century.