IRONY and PARADOX

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IRONY and PARADOX

• by Don L. F. Nilsen and
• Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Roadside Ironies
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Irony A Definition

• The word IRONY comes from the Greek eiron meaning
  dissembler in speech.
• In modern English, the term usually refers to
  speech incidents in which the intended meaning of
  the words is contrary to their literal
  interpretation.

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HISTORICALLY, IRONY IN LITERATURE developed
during the Age of the Enlightenmentthe time of
Voltaire, Hume, Pope, Dryden, Swift, Addison,
Steele, and Diderot however it has a long
history as in these examples.

• In Chaucers 14th-century Canterbury Tales, an
  unhappily married merchant grandly praises
  marriage.
• In Shakespeares Julius Caesar, Marc Antonys
  extravagant praise of Caesar is ironic.
• Jonathan Swifts 18th-century Modest Proposal
  putting forward the idea that the English should
  start eating Irish babies was ironic.
• A related irony is that some of Swifts opponents
  read his ironic proposal as legitimate and
  therefore attempted to have Swift declared insane.

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• There is double irony in O. Henrys 1906 story
  The Gift of the Magi in which a husband sells
  his watch to buy gold combs for his wifes 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.
• In the 1980s, Art Buchwald observed about Gary
  Trudeau that as with all successful
  anti-Establishment figures, Mr. Trudeau will
  soon be an honored member of the Establishment.

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DRAMATIC IRONY IN LITERATURE occurs when the
audience, or one of the characters, knows
something that the other characters do not.

• Jerzy Kosinskis novel and the movie Being There
  is the story of a mentally disabled gardener
  named Chauncey Gardner. Because of unusual
  circumstances, Chauncey is mistaken for a sage
  and a great visionary. As he makes ordinary
  comments appropriate to a gardener, his listeners
  supply grandiose metaphorical meanings.
• In George Bernard Shaws 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.

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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 Bears
  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 knowwhile the students in the
  classroom do notthat the horrible, mean
  substitute teacher Miss Viola Swamp, is really
  their kind and loving Miss Nelson in disguise.

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IRONY VS. SATIRE

• Critic Northrop Frye makes a distinction between
  satire and irony. He says that satire is a
  criticism of society with a clear understanding
  in the authors mind of what society should be
  like, but is not.
• The author of a satire hopes to persuade readers
  to work for the authors vision as does C.S.
  Lewis in his Screwtape Letters.
• Those who create gallows humor and irony do not
  intend to point their readers in a particular
  direction, but instead to leave them in doubt.
• As Frye says, Whenever a reader is not sure what
  the authors attitude is or what his own is
  supposed to be, we have irony with relatively
  little satire.

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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?
• Is this irony or just ambiguity?

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Examples of Irony
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Many modern critics make only a two-way
distinction between LINGUISTIC and. SITUATIONAL
humor.

• Linguistic irony requires a sender and a
  receiver, while situational irony requires only
  an observer with a clever mind as when Lily
  Tomlin buys a waste basket.
• The clerk puts it into a paper sack so she can
  take it home, and the first thing Tomlin does
  when she gets home is to put the paper sack into
  the waste basket.
• Derek Evans and Dave Fulwilers Whos Nobody in
  America is filled with such ironic complaints as
  the one from James M. Gatwood of San Ramon,
  California. In seven visits to his dentist he
  spent 2,800 and the dentist still calls him
  Sidney. Gatwood asks in frustration, Who the
  hell is Sidney?

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STABLE IRONY VS. OBSERVABLE IRONY

• Literary critic Wayne Booth uses the term stable
  irony to refer to that which humans create to be
  heard or read and understood with some precision.
  He says that stable ironies allow readers
  glimpses into authors most private thoughts.
• An example of Observable (or Situational) Irony
  is when a premature monsoon ruins an armys
  invasion plans or when lightning strikes just as
  a preacher raises his arms to make a dramatic
  point about God.
• In such situations, all that is needed is an
  aware observer. Writers and dramatists often
  work such observable ironies into their plots.

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Friends Of Irony

• http//www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1715592/Fr
  iendsofirony/

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More Examples of Irony
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Paradox vs. Contradiction

• Because paradoxes appear to be contradictions,
  they are ironic in that observers must view the
  paradox from two competing points of view. They
  seem contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd, but
  in some sense are true.
• While highlighting breakdowns in our expectations
  of a logical universe, they are sources of both
  delight and consternation as the human mind works
  to figure out how people can in good faith talk
  about a large mouse running between the legs of
  a small elephant, or can make sense out of the
  Yiddish curse, He should drop dead, God forbid!

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Paradoxes Are Sometimes the Result of Paradigm
Shifts in the History of Ideas

• For example the most basic or earliest meaning of
  man may have been in contrast to animal, i.e.
  human cf. beast.
• But then it took on a meaning man in contrast to
  woman, followed by the word acquiring such
  additional meanings as bravery and noble
  behavior.
• It was in this sense that David Ben-Gurion in the
  1970s called Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir,
  The best man in government.
• DO WE STILL HAVE CONFUSIONSAND SOMETIMES
  HUMORREVOLVING AROUND THE WORD MAN?

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PARADOXES IN CHILDRENS LITERATURE

• From Lemony Snicket
• It doesnt take courage to kill someone It
  takes a severe lack of moral stamina.
• Assumptions are dangerous things to makebombs,
  for instance, or strawberry shortcakeif you make
  even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in
  terrible trouble.
• In The Miserable Mill, when a worker gets his leg
  mangled, his fellow workers give him a coupon for
  50 off at the Ahab Memorial Hospital in
  Paltryville.

• From Lewis Carroll
• Why, sometimes Ive believed as many as six
  impossible things before breakfast.
• The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterdaybut
  never jam today.
• Now here, you see, it takes all the running you
  can do, to keep in the same place. If you want
  to get somewhere else, you must run at least
  twice as fast as that.

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Irony in Signs
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SOCRATIC IRONY

• Socratic irony occurs when a person pretends to
  be ignorant and willing to learn from another,
  but then asks adroit questions that expose the
  weaknesses in the other persons argument.
• The name comes from the Greek philosopher (c.
  470-399 B.C.) Socrates, who developed the
  Socratic method of teaching through asking
  questions designed to elicit answers from
  inside his students.
• Along with Aristotle and Plato, he is given
  credit for laying the philosophical foundations
  of Western culture.

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TRAGIC IRONY occurs in situations where there are
terrible consequences as in the Greek drama
Oedipus Rex, Shakespeares Hamlet and King Lear,
and maybe even Arthur Millers Death of a
Salesman.

• So why in a class on humor, should we look at
  tragic irony?
• One reason is that by recognizing tragic irony in
  literature, we will be better able to recognize
  it in real life and perhaps do something about
  it.
• Also by looking at tragically ironic events, we
  can gain insights into the kind of dark humor
  that became fashionable in the latter half of the
  20th century.

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Joseph Hellers Catch-22 as an example of Dark
Humor

• The title of Hellers anti-war novel is so
  intriguing that it is now in dictionaries as the
  name for any tricky problem, especially one for
  which the only solution is denied by a
  circumstance inherent in the problem.
• In the book, Yossarian would be excused from
  flying bombing missions if he were declared
  insane. However the fact that he is trying to
  get out of flying bombing missions proves his
  sanity. He therefore has to keep flying.
• A second paradox is that the pilots can go home
  after flying a number of missions, but the number
  keeps getting larger.

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A Winter Irony
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Real-life Tragedies Growing Out of Paradoxical
Events

• Is this last paradox similar to what some of
  todays soldiers feel about having their time
  extended in Iraq or Afghanistan?
• In July of 2012, news stories revealed that,
  ironically, an average of one soldier per day was
  committing suicide while serving in an
  institution designed to prevent death.

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Real-Life Catch-22s illustrate the kind of irony
illustrated by many urban legends and
contemporary novels, films, and plays

• People who cant get a job until they have
  experience and who cant get experience until
  they have a job are in a Catch-22.
• So are Authors who cant get their manuscripts
  published until they have an agent but cant get
  an agent until they have been published.
• A newspaper story under the headline Texas in
  Catch-22 told about a Texas State law forbidding
  the execution of anyone insane. However, a
  prisoner on death row refused to take the
  medication that would keep him sane so the State
  was left in limbo.

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Ironies in the Attempted Assassination of
President Ronald Reagan

• On a smaller scale, it was ironic that when John
  Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan,
  his shots went awry, but one bounced back from
  the bullet-proof steel of the Presidents
  limousine and entered Reagans body. This means
  that in effect Reagan was shot by his own
  Presidential limousine, which was designed to
  protect him.
• At the time of the shooting, Reagan was leaving
  the Washington Hilton Hotel, which local
  humorists now refer to as the Hinckley Hilton.
• President Reagan gave his a stamp of approval
  to joking about the assassination attempt when he
  asked the doctors treating him if they were
  Republicans. That he could make a joke while
  on a stretcher being wheeled into emergency
  surgery, relieved tensions around the world.
  WHY? HOW?

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IRONY AND PARADOX 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.

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Explain the irony!
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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 dont shrink when it rains?

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Ironic statements are sometimes used as
conversational lubricantsa kind of anticipatory
apology.

• EXAMPLES
• Not to change the subject, but . . .
• Far be it from me to say, but . . .
• I dont mean to impose my opinion, but . . .
• Clearly . . . or It is well known that . . .

• Do speakers realize they are starting out by
  saying just the opposite of what they intend?
• Do you think the speakers appear humble or
  tricky?
• How do these examples differ from the
  contradictory The King Is Dead! God Save the
  King!

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IRONY FOR PERSUASIONThis turn on the phrase
Will Work for Food was used as an attention
getter in a serious article.

• The author was protesting how in todays 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.

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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.

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ALANIS MORISSETTE Ironic Song with Lyrics

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vNm-1xvWibt0

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Is this Visual Irony stand-up or sit-down
comedy?Actually, the nuns are sitting on stools
with interesting legs.
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On Searching for Answers

• Because it is so hard to give definitions and
  clear-cut answers to all the possible questions
  about paradox and irony, we will end with a few
  more paradoxical 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 isnt any answer. There aint going to be
  any answer. There never has been an answer.
  Thats the answer. Gertrude Stein

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In conclusion, Ironies are everywhere!