question_answer 3)

Suggest a few instances in the poem which highlight humor and irony.  

Answer:

'The Tale of Melon City' is full of irony and humour. There is a 'just and placid' king who in the end, becomes the victim of his own sense of justice. He is 'placid' but flares up on small issues and passes death sentence. The king, who is supposed to rule, gets ruled by others - chief of builders, masons, architect, wise man, and so on and so forth. After the death of the king, the state is ruled by a melon. It is humorous to the extent of being ridiculous. But underneath lies a message - when people are disillusioned and without direction, it hardly matters to them who their king is - a human being or a melon.