Humor and Irony
Chapter Seven
« Serious »
• Literary and artistic works may be
« serious » but not necessarily solemn
• Humor combined with significant
insight into human nature
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Greek and Roman plays
Shakespeare’s humor
Chaucer
Austen
Dickens
Twain
O’Connor
Irony vs. Sarcasm
• Sarcasm – language a person uses to belittle
another
• Irony – technique used to convey truth about
human experience by exposing some incongruity
of a character’s behavior or society’s traditions
Verbal Irony
• Figure of speech in which the speaker
says the opposite of what he/she
intends to say
– “You’re wasting away before my very eyes.”
(spoken to overweight Tub in “Hunters in the
Snow”; uses irony and sarcasm to ridicule Tub)
– “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or
young and foolish [we] were the only ones just right”
(narrator in “The Lesson”; irony establishes distance
between adult narrator and her youthful self who
thought she knew everything—not sarcasm)
Dramatic Irony
• Contrast between what a character says and what
the reader knows to be true
– Loretta Bird says of Mrs. Peebles, “She wouldn’t find time
to lay down in the middle of the day, if she had seven kids
like I got” is ironic because Loretta herself often “finds
time” to sit gossiping at the Peebles farm instead of staying
home with her children (“How I Met My Husband”)
Situational Irony
• Discrepancy between appearance and reality,
expectation and fulfillment, or what is and what
would seem appropriate
– Mr. Das’s guidebook to India appears to have been
published abroad; Indian Mr. Kapasi watches American
show Dallas, but American Tina has never heard of it
(“Interpreter of Maladies”)
– Rainsford, “the celebrated hunter” becomes the hunted
(“The Most Dangerous Game”)
Irony
• Often a means for compression – suggests
complex meanings without stating them
– Ironic contrast between appearances and reality
generates a complex set of meanings
– Three hunting buddies are not “friends” in any
meaningful sense of the word; their cruel, selfabsorbed behaviors provide contrast (“Hunters in
the Snow”)
Importance of Irony
• Truth must be produced indirectly
– A flat statement (an essay, a plot summary) can
have no emotional impact on readers
– Readers must feel the truth, not
simply understand it intellectually
– If a story has no emotional impact,
it has failed as a work of art
“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”
Listen to Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic.”
Provide examples of irony from the song.
"Ironic" with lyrics
Sentimentality
• Contrived or excessive emotion
– Stories try to elicit easy or unearned emotional responses
– Uncle Tom’s Cabin tries to wring tears from the reader over
the plight of African-American slaves
– In contrast, Beloved uses carefully restrained, artful
language and frequently biting irony in its castigation of
slavery
– Genuine emotion if life is treated faithfully and
perceptively; sentimental narrative oversimplifies and
exaggerates emotion
Recognizing Sentimentality
1. Editorializing: commenting on the story and
thus instructing readers how to feel
2. Poeticizing: overwriting; using immoderately
heightened and distended language to
accomplish efforts
Recognizing Sentimentality
3. Excessive Detailing: being highly selective in
details that all point one way—toward
producing emotion rather than conveying truth
– Little child who dies is always uncomplaining and cheerful
under adversity, never naughty or ungrateful; may be an
orphan or the only child of a mother who loves him dearly;
may be lame, hungry, and in possession of one toy, from
which he cannot be parted
– Villain may be all villain with a cruel laugh and sharp whip,
though he may reform at the end (sentimentalists believe
in the heart of gold beneath rough exterior)
Recognizing Sentimentality
4. Relying on Stock Response: emotion has its
source outside of facts established by the story
– Some situations/objects produce an almost
automatic response (babies, mothers,
grandmothers, young love, patriotism, worship,
etc.)
– Don’t go to trouble of picturing the situation in
realistic and convincing detail
Recognizing Sentimentality
5. Presenting “Sweet” Picture of Life: relying on
stock themes
– Every cloud has a silver lining (If the little child dies, he
goes to heaven or makes some life better by his death.)
– Virtue is triumphant (The villain is defeated; true love is
rewarded.)
– Specializes in “sad but sweet”
Sentimentality
The Notebook
Human Experience
• “The writers we value most are
able to look at human experience
in a clear-eyed, honest way and to employ literary
techniques such as humor and irony as a way to
enhance, not reduce, the emotional impact of their
stories.”
• “A complex human reality requires a complex
narrative technique, and in this way the best
storytellers always have attempted to portray the
whole of human experience—from its most tragic
misery to its most absurd folly—in a single,
integrated artistic vision.”