IRONY 1 Irony A contradiction between what

IRONY 1

Irony A contradiction between what happens and what you expect to happen Examples: • A fireman afraid of fire • A dentist with crooked teeth and cavities galore • You shout “I’m not upset!” but your fists are clenched, your eyes look like they are ready to pop out, and your face is the color of tomato red (sarcasm)

Remember the Three • Dramatic- when the audience or reader knows info that the characters DO NOT • Situational- when something totally unexpected happens • Verbal- it is like sarcasm (saying the opposite of what you mean) 3

Dramatic Irony • The reader knows something about a character’s situation that a character does not know. • The reader is aware of the irony. • The character is unaware of the irony.

Dramatic Irony Continued Example: • In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, we know that Brutus is plotting to kill Julius Caesar, but Julius Caesar does not know this. He thinks that Brutus is a loyal man to him. • In Cinderella, the prince goes searching for the “princess” who lost her slipper at the ball. The prince does not know that she is a poor girl, almost a slave to her stepsisters and stepmother. It is ironic because we know the owner of the shoe is Cinderella, a poor girl, but he thinks it is a girl that comes from great wealth.

Situational Irony o. What actually happens is not expected to happen o. The character and the reader are unaware of the irony

Situational Irony Continued An aviator was sent on a mission to a distant part of a globe. When he returned to his base, he noticed it was strangely quiet. Everything was in perfect order, but there wasn’t a sign of life in that place. He wandered through the town in growing astonishment. Human beings and animals simply had vanished from the scene. He tore back to the airport, filled his plane with high octane gas, and flew terrified, to New York, London, Moscow, Shanghai. While he had been on his mission, every living creature had apparently disappeared. He was the only man alive in the world! He weighed the situation carefully and found it intolerable. Suicide seemed the only solution. He swallowed a vial of deadly poison and calmly waited for it to take effect. Just as the drug reached his brain, and the room started swimming before his eyes, he heard a familiar sound. It was the telephone ringing. -Bennett Cerf

Verbal Irony • Saying one thing but meaning another • Tone of Sarcasm Examples: 1. 2. 3. As your teacher is signing detention forms for students who did not complete their homework, he says in an irritated voice, “I just love when students don’t do their homework!” It’s raining cats and dogs outside. You took the day off from work today to finally put up a fence post because of your annoying neighbors. You express, “This weather is just lovely. ” Your friend spoils the ending of a movie for you, and you express in a haughty tone, “Thanks a lot!”

Verbal Irony Continued Green Memory A wonderful time- the War: when money rolled in and blood rolled out. But blood was far away from here--Money was near Do you think that the speaker really considered this a “wonderful time”? Why or why not? What kind of people might be willing to sacrifice blood for money?

More Fun with Verbal Irony • You have a six-foot tall friend who you call “shorty. ” • You planned six months in advance for good weather on your wedding day. It is suddenly raining and hailing. You step outside and say, “Oh good! I was hoping it would rain. ”

Roadside Ironies 11

Irony: A Definition • The word IRONY comes from the Greek eiron • Irony is when the unexpected occurs 12

HISTORICALLY, IRONY IN LITERATURE developed during the Age of the Enlightenment—the time of Voltaire, Hume, Pope, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Steele, and Diderot; however it has a long history as in these examples. • In Chaucer’s 14 th-century Canterbury Tales, an unhappily married merchant brags to all about how good marriage can be. • In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Marc Antony’s extravagant praise of Caesar is ironic. • Jonathan Swift’s 18 th-century “Modest Proposal” putting forward the idea that the English should start eating Irish babies was ironic. • A related irony is that some of Swift’s opponents read his ironic proposal as legitimate and therefore attempted to have Swift declared insane. 13

• There is double irony in O. Henry’s 1906 story “The Gift of the Magi” in which a husband sells his watch to buy gold combs for his wife’s hair while she sells her hair to buy a gold chain for his watch. • This is similar to the joke about the two friends, one a Catholic and one a Protestant, who try to convert each other. They presented such convincing arguments that the Protestant became a Catholic and the Catholic became a Protestant. 14

DRAMATIC IRONY IN LITERATURE occurs when the audience, or one of the characters, knows something that the other characters do not. • In George Bernard Shaw’s play, Major Barbara, one of the tensest moments for the audience is when they learn that the shed, just entered by a character who casually lit a cigarette, is filled with high explosives. 15

Even young children have the skill to appreciate dramatic irony • In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, kindergarten children are amused that while the bears are puzzled, they know what happened to Baby Bear’s porridge. • They also like the fun of seeing how the youngest goat, in the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff, sets out to fool the troll who lives under the bridge. • And in the modern picture book, Miss Nelson Is Missing by Harry Allard and James Marshall, children are amused that by looking carefully at the pictures, they know—while the students in the classroom do not—that the horrible, mean substitute teacher Miss Viola Swamp, is really their kind and loving Miss Nelson in disguise. 16

One Definition of Irony is That it Inspires the Receiver of the Message to Ponder its Meaning • What does the message on this pickup mean? • Is the owner saying he chooses Arizona, NOT California? • Or is he saying that he chooses “Not Arizona, but California”? 17

Examples of Irony 18

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More Examples of Irony 21

Irony in Signs 25

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A Winter Irony 30

IRONY FOR FUN ONLY IN AMERICA… • …do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters. • …do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage. • …do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front counter. 34

Explain the irony! 35

MORE SITUATIONAL IRONIES DO YOU EVER WONDER. . . • WHY the time of day with the slowest traffic is called “rush hour”? • WHY they sterilize the needle for lethal injections? • WHY if flying is so safe, airports are called terminals? • WHY sheep don’t shrink when it rains? 36

IRONY FOR PERSUASION This turn on the phrase “Will Work for Food” was used as an attention getter in a serious article. The author was protesting how in today’s economy, companies are increasingly asking students to do work for free (sometimes paying tuition for the privilege) that before the “downturn” they would have been paid for. 38

More IRONY FOR FUN. Search “Irony” on the Internet, to find photos of such real-life ironies as… • A rusted can of RUSTOLEUM paint. • A SAFE DRIVING school with a car crashed through the front window. • A WEIGHT WATCHERS office sharing a building with a BASKIN ROBBINS ice cream shop. • A sign in the midst of a traffic jam reading LANE CLOSED TO EASE CONGESTION. • A billboard from Pacific Bell reading PHONE OUT OF SERVICE? GIVE US A CALL. 39

ALANIS MORISSETTE: “Ironic” Song with Lyrics: http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Nm-1 xv. Wibt 0 40

Is this Visual Irony “stand-up” or “sitdown” comedy? Actually, the nuns are sitting on stools with “interesting” legs. 41

On Searching for Answers Because it is so hard to give definitions and clear-cut answers to all the possible questions about irony, we will end with a few more ironic statements made by famous writers and thinkers. • When I grow up, I want to be a little boy. Joseph Heller • Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde • There isn’t any answer. There ain’t going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer. Gertrude Stein 42

In conclusion, Ironies are everywhere! 43