600,000 gallons per second. 60 seconds in a minute. 60 * 600,000 = 36,000,000 gallons/per minute.
The moral of Guy de Maupassant’s “The False Gems” (“Les Bijoux” in French, 1883) sharply questions the hypocrisy of its male protagonist, Monsieur Lantin. Lantin is passionately in love with his young wife, whom he sees as the embodiment of beauty and virtue. His wife is perfect in every aspect, except for her love of imitation jewelry and the theater. Being of a puritanical bent of mind, Lantin finds both of his wife’s interests showy and improper. Clearly, such interests do not fit his worldview of what a well-brought-up, modest woman should be enjoying. At one point he remonstrates her ostentatious tastes, saying:
My dear, as you cannot afford to buy real diamonds, you ought to appear adorned with your beauty and modesty alone, which are the rarest ornaments of your sex.
Clearly, it is not the fact that she wears jewelry which bothers Lantin, but the fact that these gems are false. Despite having such fixed notions about real and fake, truth and deception, Lantin is ironically oblivious to how his wife manages to eke out their lavish lifestyle on his modest salary of 3,500 francs. After his wife dies of a lung infection, Lantin is heartbroken. But soon the heartbreak is replaced by financial hardship: left to manage his income by himself, Lantin struggles for even his next meal. Here, he commits his first act of impropriety, attempting to sell off his beloved wife’s imitation jewelry. Thus, the text begins to reveal his hypocrisy.
When a jeweler’s appraisal shockingly reveals that the ornaments are not fake at all, but real and precious, Lantin’s hypocrisy sparkles as well. At first, he falls into a “dead faint” at the implication of the jewelry's actual worth. His modest, virtuous wife was clearly leading a double life, being gifted gems from her many admirers. It was this double life that funded the extravagant lifestyle of the Lantins.
But Lantin’s state of shock at his wife’s “betrayal” does not last long and gives way to something else quickly enough. Instead of shunning the income, which should be deemed dubious by his strict standards, he sells off all the jewelry, resigns from his job, and settles into a life of leisure. In this, the story exposes Lantin’s hypocrisy completely. His love for his wife perishes with her “deception,” but he is not above enjoying the fruits of her lies. He even discovers a love for the theater, for which he harshly judged his late wife. And soon enough he remarries, but in a cunning twist, the effect is not what he had hoped.
Six months afterward he married again. His second wife was a very virtuous woman, with a violent temper. She caused him much sorrow.
As we see, the story challenges Lantin’s definitions of truth, happiness, and virtue in a wife; and he gets his just desserts for his double standards. The wife he considered “impure” was the one he was truly happy with, while the truly virtuous woman causes him “much sorrow,” as he deserves.
1- Before being able to answer these questions, you would have to understand the difference between sarcasm and verbal irony.
Verbal irony happens when a character says something while meaning something different. An example of this would be a man standing in the scorching sun stating "At least the weather is nice today" as he sweats bullets. He doesn't think that the weather is actually nice. Instead, he is pointing out how unpleasant it is by stating what it's not.
On the other hand, sarcasm, while similar to verbal irony, is mostly used to mock and ridicule the recipient of the remark. Let's say that you were to approach this man standing in the sun, and you dared to ask him if he was hot. If he was of the sarcastic kind, he would answer something like "Of course not, Einstein! I'm sweating because I like feeling moist." In a similar remark, not only would he be pointing out the obvious by stating the opposite, he would also be insulting or making fun of you in the meantime.
Now, to your questions.
<span>2- What role does sarcasm play in Pride and Prejudice?
In both, the book and the movie, it is clear that one of the main things that sets Elizabeth Bennet (protagonist) apart from the other girls is her wit. because of this, she is able to come back with the best comebacks of the Romanticism and Victorian era (Current period in which the book was written and the period that came after). Mr. Darcy </span>(Elizabeth's love interest)<span>, who thinks he's all that, is not used to being put to the test but rather having all girls dying to be with him. When he tries to treat Elizabeth as inferior, she demonstrates with her sarcasm that while her socioeconomic status might be inferior, her mind is not. Precisely because of her witty comebacks, Mr. Darcy was able to tell her apart from everyone else and fall for her. Because of this, we can undoubtedly conclude that sarcasm is one of Elizabeth's best features at the center of the story's conflict.
3- How does its role differ from that of irony?
While irony is still used in the hands of the characters, this is more importantly used by the author to critique the society she was in. In the time that Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, going up the social ladder was everything that mattered, and she hated it. She wrote this novel and critiqued that aspect through it, and how women were thought of as useful in terms of marriage. She uses this to present the story's biggest irony, how the characters all preach this lifestyle while actually believing in a better reality. Mr. Darcy had everyone believe that he only cared about his role in society, while in reality being a deeply emotional man. Mr. Bennet, too, wanted his daughters to marry into wealth, but was hesitant to let Elizabeth marry Mr. Darcy for any reason other than love.
4- How do both sarcasm and irony affect your understanding of the story?
While this question is personal, it is easy to see how, without understanding irony and sarcasm, one could misinterpret the characters motivations and true emotions. </span>
