Question

"So now they and their church found it necessary to deny any other sect its freedom, lest their New Jerusalem be defiled and corrupted by wrong and deceitful ideas." What is the irony in that statement?

Answer 1

Answer:

'The Puritans came to this country for religious freedom, but they then persecuted others for their religion which made the colony almost as bad as the place they had left.'

Explanation:

The irony is described as the literary device that the author employs to portray the incongruity that exists between the expectations and the reality of what actually happens. This device is employed either to emphasize a particular idea indirectly.

In the given excerpt, the irony that is displayed in this statement would be that 'however, they were urging the church of England to provide them with their own liberty but the Puritans offered a very little freedom to their members' which reflects the incongruity between the expectations and the reality. Their expectation was outplayed when they transformed the place into even worse than they had left previously.