Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía , meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a situation, literary technique or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity, discordance or unintended connection that goes beyond the most evident meaning. It is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite.
Definitions
Henry Watson Fowler, in The King's English , says “any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same."
The word 'ironic' is sometimes used as a synonym for incongruous in situations where there is no “double audience”, and no contradiction between the ostensible and true meaning of the words. An example of such usage:
Ironically, Sir Arthur Sullivan is remembered for the comic operas he found embarrassing, rather than the serious works he hoped would be his legacy.
The American Heritage Dictionary' s secondary meaning for irony : “incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.” This sense, however, is not synonymous with "incongruous" but merely a definition of dramatic or situational irony. The American Heritage Dictionary ’s usage panel found it unacceptable to use the word ironic to describe mere unfortunate coincidences or surprising disappointments that “suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly.”
Types of irony
Modern theories of rhetoric distinguish among verbal, dramatic and situational irony.
- Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example of this is sarcasm.
- Dramatic irony is a disparity of expression and awareness: when words and actions possess a significance that the listener or audience understands, but the speaker or character does not.
- Situational irony is the disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect. Likewise, cosmic irony is disparity between human desires and the harsh realities of the outside world (or the whims of the gods). By some definitions, situational irony and cosmic irony are not irony at all.
Verbal irony
Verbal irony is distinguished from situational irony and dramatic irony in that it is produced intentionally by speakers. For instance, if a speaker exclaims, “I’m not upset!” but reveals an upset emotional state through their voice while truly trying to claim they're not upset, it would not be verbal irony by virtue of its verbal manifestation (it would, however, be situational irony). But if the same speaker said the same words and intended to communicate that they were upset by claiming they were not, the utterance would be verbal irony. This distinction gets at an important aspect of verbal irony: speakers communicate implied propositions that are intentionally contradictory to the propositions contained in the words themselves. There are examples of verbal irony that do not rely on saying the opposite of what one means, and there are cases where all the traditional criteria of irony exist and the utterance is not ironic.
Ironic similes are a form of verbal irony where a speaker does intend to communicate the opposite of what they mean. For instance, the following explicit similes begin with the deceptive formation of a statement that means P but which eventually conveys the meaning not P :
- as hard as putty
- as clear as mud
- as pleasant as a root canal treatment
- "as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake" (Kurt Vonnegut from Breakfast of Champions )
The irony is recognizable in each case only by using stereotypical knowledge of the source concepts (e.g., mud, root canal surgery) to detect an incongruity.
A fair amount of confusion has surrounded the issue regarding the relationship between verbal irony and sarcasm, and psychology researchers have addressed the issue directly (e.g., Lee & Katz, 1998). For example, ridicule is an important aspect of sarcasm, but not verbal irony in general. By this account, sarcasm is a particular kind of personal criticism leveled against a person or group of persons that incorporates verbal irony. For example, a person reports to her friend that rather than going to a medical doctor to treat her ovarian cancer, she has decided to see a spiritual healer instead. In response her friend says sarcastically, "Great idea! I hear they do fine work!" The friend could have also replied with any number of ironic expressions that should not be labeled as sarcasm exactly, but still have many shared elements with sarcasm.
Most instances of verbal irony are labeled by research subjects as sarcastic, suggesting that the term sarcasm is more widely used than its technical definition suggests it should be (Bryant & Fox Tree, 2002; Gibbs, 2000). Some psycholinguistic theorists (e.g., Gibbs, 2000) suggest that sarcasm ("Great idea!", "I hear they do fine work."), hyperbole ("That's the best idea I have heard in years!"), understatement ("Sure, what the hell, it's only cancer..."), rhetorical questions ("What, does your spirit have cancer?"), double entendre ("I'll bet if you do that, you'll be communing with spirits in no time...") and jocularity ("Get them to fix your bad back while you're at it.") should all be considered forms of verbal irony. The differences between these tropes can be quite subtle, and relate to typical emotional reactions of listeners, and the rhetorical goals of the speakers. Regardless of the various ways theorists categorize figurative language types, people in conversation are attempting to decode speaker intentions and discourse goals, and are not generally identifying, by name, the kinds of tropes used.
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters. Dramatic irony has three stages - installation, exploitation and resolution (often also called preparation, suspension and resolution) - producing dramatic conflict in what one character relies or appears to rely upon, the contrary of which is known by observers (especially the audience; sometimes to other characters within the drama) to be true.
For example:
- In City Lights the audience knows that Charlie Chaplin's character is not a millionaire, but the blind flower girl (Virginia Cherill) is unaware and believes he's rich.
- In Cyrano de Bergerac , the reader knows that Cyrano loves Roxane and that he is the real author of the letters that Christian is writing to the young woman; Roxane is unaware of this.
- In North by Northwest , the audience knows that Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is not Kaplan; Vandamm (James Mason) and his acolytes do not. The audience also knows that Kaplan is a fictitious agent invented by the CIA; Roger and Vandamm do not.
- In Oedipus the King , the reader knows that Oedipus himself is the murderer that he is seeking; Oedipus, Creon and Jocasta do not.
- In Othello , the audience knows that Desdemona has been faithful to Othello, but Othello doesn't. The audience also knows that Iago is pulling the strings, a fact hidden from Othello, Desdemona, Cassio and Roderigo.
- In Pygmalion , the audience knows that Eliza is a woman of the street; Higgins's family does not.
- In Cask of Amontillado , the reader knows something bad is going to happen to Fortunato, while Fortunato does not.
- In I am the Cheese . the reader knows that Adam is in a mental hospital, and that he was in a car crash, but Adam does not.
- In Iphigenia at Aulis , the reader or spectator knows that Iphigenia is the one her father (Agamemnon) is going to sacrifice, but she is ignorant of this.
- In The Truman Show, the viewer is aware that Truman is on a television show, but Truman himself is unaware.
Tragic irony
Tragic irony is a special category of dramatic irony. In tragic irony, the words and actions of the characters contradict the real situation, which the spectators fully realize.
Ancient Greek drama was especially characterized by tragic irony because the audiences were so familiar with the legends that most of the plays dramatized. Sophocles' Oedipus the King provides a classic example of tragic irony at its fullest.
Linda Hutcheon suggests that, by removing the semantic security of the one signifier, one signified equivalency, irony threatens authoritative models of discourse.
Irony has some of its foundation in the onlooker’s perception of paradox which arises from insoluble problems.
For example:
- In the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet , when Romeo finds Juliet in a drugged death-like sleep, he assumes her to be dead and kills himself. Upon awakening to find her dead lover beside her, Juliet kills herself with his dagger.
Situational irony
This is a relatively modern use of the term, and describes a discrepancy between the expected result and actual res
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