Irony

1
Irony

• Is the broadest class of FIGURES OF THOUGHT that
  depend on presenting a deliberate contrast
  between two levels of meaning. The word derives
  from a type of character in Greek drama, the
  eiron, who pretended to be stupid and unaware.
  He used the pretense to deceive and triumph over
  another stock character, the alazon, who was
  truly stupid, but boastful and complacent. The
  major types of irony are VERBAL, SITUATIONAL,
  STRUCTURAL, DRAMATIC, TRAGIC and COSMIC.

2
Verbal Irony

• Consists of implying a meaning different from,
  and often the complete opposite of, the one that
  is explicitly stated. Usually, the irony is
  signaled by clues in the context of the situation
  or in the style of expression. In complex cases,
  the detection of irony may depend on values that
  the author assumes are shared by his or her
  audience. Be careful, as verbal irony requires
  subtle reading and comprehension and is always in
  danger of being misconstrued, and thereby of
  shocking or offending a naïve audience. (Hamilton
  44).

3
Sarcasm

• The taunting use of apparent approval or praise
  for actual disapproval or dispraise, is
  mistakenly used as synonymous with verbal irony.
  The distinctions are that sarcasm is simpler and
  more crude in dialogue, it is often signaled by
  vocal inflection. For example, someone might
  react to the news that the car is out of gas with
  the sarcastic retort, Great! Just what we
  needed. In another example, Amanda Wingfield,
  the controlling mother in Tennessee Williamss
  play The Glass Menagerie, demands to know of her
  adult son where he has been going at night. Tom,
  an aspiring writer who feels trapped by having to
  work in a warehouse to support his mother and
  sister, has been escaping to bars and movies in
  his free time. When Amanda calls his explanation
  that goes to the movies a lie, Tom reacts with
  bitter sarcasm
• Im going to opium dens, dens of vice and
  criminals hangouts, Mother. Ive joined the
  Hogan Gang, Im a hired assassin, I carry a tommy
  gun in a violin case! . . . They call me Killer,
  Killer Wingfield, Im leading a double-life, a
  simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night
  a dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother.
• Toms sarcasm is signaled by the exaggerated
  details, cliches of B-movie gangster plots, which
  mock Amandas groundless charges, and by the
  italicized words that emphasize his frustration
  and outrage. (Hamilton 44-45)

4
Structural Irony

• Refers to an implication of alternate or reversed
  meaning that pervades a work. A major technique
  for sustaining structural irony is the use of a
  naïve protagonist or an unreliable narrator who
  continually interprets events and intentions in
  ways that the author signals are mistaken. For
  example, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twains boy
  narrator, believes at first that the rascally
  King and Duke are the brave and erudite noblemen
  they claim to be, despite signs of their shady
  past and specious learning. Other narrators may
  be unreliable not because they are gullible but
  because they are mentally incapacitated. The
  narrator of Edgar Allen Poes short story The
  Tell-Tale Heart is paranoid and hallucinatory.
  (Hamilton 45).
• Another means of creating structural irony is to
  relate the same events from the perspectives of
  different narrators. (Hamilton 45)
• An example, Everybody Loves Raymond, Deborah and
  Ray are continuously fighting over items that are
  not important or insignificant yet whenever they
  interpret their argument to the audience both
  have different versions of what the argument
  actually entails.

5
Dramatic Irony

• Occurs when the audience is privy to knowledge
  that one or more of the characters lacks. The
  technique can be used in for comic or tragic
  effects. In Homers Odyssey, the long-absent
  Odysseuss disguised as a beggar provides
  poignant dramatic irony as he encounters various
  beloved family members and hated rivals but, for
  the sake of his intended revenge, must refrain
  from revealing his true identity. Again, the
  audience is flattered by being allowed to share
  in the omniscient point of view often reserved
  for the author. (Hamilton 46).

6
Tragic Irony

• When dramatic irony occurs in tragedies, it is
  called tragic irony. The audience knows from the
  opening scene of Othello, for example, that the
  malevolent Iago is plotting his demise of the
  noble general who he pretends to serve
  faithfully, and that his epithet, honest Iago,
  is entirely ironic.
• In Romeo and Juliet, we watch in helpless dismay
  as the rash Mercutio wholly misconstrues his
  friend Romeos motives for refusing to respond to
  Tybalts challenge. Unlike Mercutio, we know
  that Romeo is secretly married to Juliet, the
  daughter of his familys enemy. Rather than
  demurring out of fear, he is trying to appease
  the insolent Tybalts challenge, who has just
  become his cousin by marriage. Mercutio takes
  Romeos courtesy for cowardice, steps in the
  fray, and inadvertently triggers the series of
  deaths that devastate both families. (Hamilton 46)

7
Cosmic Irony

• Refers to an implied worldview in which
  characters are led to embrace false hopes of aid
  or success, only to be defeated by some larger
  force, such as God or fate. For instance,
  MacBeth believes that he is protected by the
  weird sisters prophecies, but he is betrayed by
  their fiendish duplicity, and Arthur Millers
  Willy Loman kills himself to secure his family
  the insurance payment that his suicide will, in
  fact, make invalid. Shakespeares King Lear, is
  a tour de force cosmic irony, in which several
  characters congratulate themselves on a triumph
  or a narrow escape, only to be destroyed shortly
  afterward. (Hamilton 46)

8
Understatement

• Is a form of IRONY in which a point is
  deliberately expressed as less, in magnitude,
  value, or importance, that it actually is. For
  example, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio dismisses
  the fatal wound he has just received as a
  scratch.

9
Free Verse

• Free verse poem's are poem's that do not have
  rules, they do not rhyme and does not have a
  meter. The poet makes up the rules for the poem
  as the poem is progressing or thoughts are being
  completed.
• http//www.life123.com/parenting/education/grammar
  /Free-Verse-Poem-Definition

10
Narrator

• A narrator can establish irony based on diction,
  tone, sarcasm, loose structure in a sentence,
  shift from one point of view to another, and a
  string of uncoordinated clauses in a passage
  (Hamilton 116, 176, 187).

11
Pathetic Fallacy

• Pathetic fallacy is a type of PERSONIFICATION, in
  which inanimate aspects of nature, such as the
  landscape or the weather, are represented as
  having human qualities or feelings. The term,
  which was invented by the Victorian critic John
  Ruskin, derives from the logical absurdity
  (fallacy) of supposing that nature can
  sympathize with (feel pathos for) human moods and
  concerns.
• Usually the pathetic fallacy reflects or
  foreshadows some aspect of the poem or narrative
  at that point, such as the plot, theme, or
  characterization, and so intensifies the tone.
• At times, writers reverse the usual use of the
  pathetic fallacy for purposes of IRONY.
  (Hamilton 40)

12
Situational Irony

• takes place when there is a discrepancy between
  what is expected to happen, or what would be
  appropriate to happen, and what really does
  happen.

13
AntithesisSpecial Type of Irony

• A contrasting of ideas made sharp by the use of
  words of opposite meaning in contiguous clauses
  or phrases (next to one another) with
  grammatically parallel structure.
• Aristotle praised antithesis in his Rhetoric
  becauseit is by putting opposing conclusions
  side by side that you refute one of them.
• Example Ask not what your country can do for
  you. Ask what you can do for your country (John
  F. Kennedy).
• Example Willing to wound, and yet afraid to
  strike (Pope).
• Example Marriage has many pains, but celibacy
  has no pleasure (Samuel Johnson).

14
HyperboleSpecial Type of Irony

• A great exaggeration.
• Example She wept oceans of tears.

15
OxymoronSpecial Type of Irony

• A paradoxical utterance that combines two terms
  that in ordinary usage are contraries, especially
  frequent in Petrarchan and Elizabethan love
  poetry (1590s). Also found in devotional prose
  or religious poetry as a way of expressing the
  Christian mysteries.
• Example Pleasing pains loving hate I burn
  and freeze (Petrarchan and Elizabethan love
  poetry).

16
ParadoxSpecial Type of Irony

• A statement which seems untrue but proves valid
  upon close inspection.
• Example When my love swears that she is made of
  truth / I do believe her, though I know that she
  lies (Shakespeare, Sonnet 138).
• Example I was much older then Im younger than
  that now (Bob Dylan).
• Example Dark with excessive bright thy skirts
  appear (Milton, Paradise Lost).

17
Coincidence (Not Irony)

• co?in?ci?dence A sequence of events that,
  although accidental, seems to have been planned
  or arranged.
• i?ro?ny Incongruity between what might be
  expected and what actually occurs.
• Source http//dragreduction.blogspot.com/2005/11/
  irony-vs-coincidence.html