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.
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
shocking or offending a naïve audience.
(Hamilton 44).
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 Williams’s
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:
–
•
I’m going to opium dens, dens of vice and criminals’ hangouts, Mother. I’ve joined the Hogan
Gang, I’m a hired assassin, I carry a tommy gun in a violin case! . . . They call me Killer, Killer
Wingfield, I’m leading a double-life, a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night a
dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother.
Tom’s sarcasm is signaled by the exaggerated details, cliches of B-movie gangster
plots, which mock Amanda’s groundless charges, and by the italicized words
that emphasize his frustration and outrage. (Hamilton 44-45)
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 Twain’s 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
Poe’s 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.
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 Homer’s Odyssey, the long-absent
Odysseus’s 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).
Surprise!
Dramatic Irony
• Band director said we
get water breaks every
10 minutes on the news
• All of the band kids
know that we don’t get
water even close to
every 10 minutes
• Ben Hergert
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 Romeo’s motives for
refusing to respond to Tybalt’s challenge. Unlike Mercutio, we
know that Romeo is secretly married to Juliet, the daughter of his
family’s enemy. Rather than demurring out of fear, he is trying to
appease the insolent Tybalt’s challenge, who has just become his
cousin by marriage. Mercutio takes Romeo’s courtesy for
cowardice, steps in the fray, and inadvertently triggers the series of
deaths that devastate both families. (Hamilton 46)
Marcos Borges, III
To the Members and Friends of the IRBBA,
With saddened hearts, we extend our deepest sympathies to Marcos, Adriana and
Stephanie Borges for the loss of their son and brother, Marcos.
Marcos and Adriana are a very special family to all us in many ways. Marcos, their
son, was a vibrant, outgoing young man. He had a passion and talent for soccer,
which his parents fostered wholeheartedly. He excelled in academics and
athletics, making his parents very proud. Please keep them in... your thoughts and
prayers.
As more details are available, we will be sure to provide them.
The IRBBA Board of Directors
We, the family of Mark Borges III, we would like to extend our sincere thanks and
appreciation to all our family, friends, endless phone calls, kind words and messages
of sympathy and sympathy that we receive during our mourning for the sudden loss of
our son Mark Borges III.
In particular, we would like to thank you for the hard work of hospital Albert Einstein of
Sao Paulo Brazil, the best in the country. They tried to, without effort, control your
infection of the immune system. Also from my son with love, compassion and
professionalism.
Our family here in Brazil appreciate it very much the presence of all those who
traveled from far and near, just to be with us. Once again, please accept our sincere
thanks and appreciation for being there to comfort us during our great loss. We will
always cherish your expressions of sympathy during this very difficult time. May God
bless us, guiding and protecting.
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 Miller’s Willy Loman kills
himself to secure his family the insurance payment that
his suicide will, in fact, make invalid. Shakespeare’s
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)
Cosmic Irony
“characters are led to embrace false hopes of aid or
success, only to be defeated by some larger force, such as
God or fate”
During Dawson’s Beauty and the Beast, Mr.
Weber came over to check to make sure
everything was in line for a perfect show. He
was skeptical of my note system. I told him, “I
got this, and we’ll all do perfectly tonight and
the show will go perfectly.”
The fire alarm went off about 3 minutes into Act
II.
Man Plans; God/Fate laughs.
Elizabeth Asonye
Cosmic Irony
• I was carrying 4
cups full of juice to
the dinner table and
my brother said
“Don’t spill the
juice” when two
minutes later he
walked by the
kitchen knocking
down a bowl of
peanuts.
Karun Salvady
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.”
Understatement
My mom said, “The cream
cheese is only a few days
old, it should still be
good”.
This is what it looked like.
The expiration date was a
month earlier.
Taylor Laurence, class of 2014
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
Free Verse
Jean Bautista
This Poem is free from restrictions
Yet it isn’t
It must followCertain boundaries
Boundaries to prevent this poem from
Becoming an awful, colorful rant
These limitations are there
To make sure that my grade
Is not turned into an F
I could even list my grocery list
On here-just for funsies
As long as I don’t curse
-Coffee
-Honey
-Basil
-Cream Cheese
-Blueberries
-Vanilla Ice Cream
-Granola Cereal
-Mint Leaves
-Apple Soda
-Shredded cheese
-milk
Free Verse
I think this part of the project is ironic
Because I don’t have to follow any
Rules like I did before
I can just
Make this poem up
Ben Hergert
As I go
And you guys will get mad
Because it looks like a cop out
Aardvarks
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).
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)
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.
Allusion
•
•
•
(al-LOO-zyun, from the Latin word for “to play with”) is a passing reference in a
work of literature to another literary or historical work, figure, or event, or to a
literary passage. The reference is explained, so that is can convey the
flattering presumption that the reader shares the writer’s erudition or inside
knowledge.
For example, Andrea Lee’s novel Sarah Phillips (1984), the narrator describes
her Harvard roommate, a chemistry major and “avid lacrosse player” who
“adored fresh air and loathed reticence and ambiguity,” as having the
following surprising predilection: “Margaret, the scientist, had . . . A positively
Brontἔesque conception of the ideal man.” The allusion is to the dark,
brooding, enigmatic heroes in the works of Charlotte and Emily Brontἔ,
especially Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.
Only a reader who recognizes the allusion would appreciate the IRONY of the
frank, forthright Margaret’s preference for men who are far from being either
frank or forthright.
Hamilton, S. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: People’s
Education, 2007.
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-vscoincidence.html
Texas Tech
University
Lubbock, Texas
June 20th / August 16th