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Paradox and irony
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- 5. IronyA contradiction betweenwhat happens and what you expect to happen Examples: A fireman afraid of fire
- 6. A dentist withcrooked teeth and cavities galore
- 7. You shout “I’mnot upset!” but your fists are clenched, your eyes look like they are ready to pop out, and your face is the color of tomato red (sarcasm)Verbal Irony
- 8. Verbal Irony ContinuedGreenMemoryA wonderful time- the War: when money rolled inand blood rolled out. But blood was far away from here---Money was nearDo you think that the speaker really considered this a “wonderful time”? Why or why not? What kind of people might be willing to sacrifice blood for money?
- 9. More Fun withVerbal IronyYou have a six-foot tall friend who you call “Shorty.”You planned six months in advance for good weather on your wedding day. It is suddenly raining and hailing. You step outside and say, “Oh good! I was hoping it would rain.”
- 10. Dramatic IronyThe readerknows something about a character’s situation that a character does not know. The reader is aware of the irony. The character is unaware of the irony.
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- 12. Situational Irony Whatactually happens is not expected to happenThe character and the reader are unaware of the irony
- 13. Situational Irony ContinuedAnaviator was sent on a mission to a distant part of a globe. When he returned to his base, he noticed it was strangely quiet. Everything was in perfect order, but there wasn’t a sign of life in that place. He wandered through the town in growing astonishment. Human beings and animals simply had vanished from the scene. He tore back to the airport, filled his plane with high octane gas, and flew terrified, to New York, London, Moscow, Shanghai. While he had been on his mission, every living creature had apparently disappeared. He was the only man alive in the world! He weighed the situation carefully and found it intolerable. Suicide seemed the only solution. He swallowed a vial of deadly poison and calmly waited for it to take effect. Just as the drug reached his brain, and the room started swimming before his eyes, he heard a familiar sound. It was the telephone ringing. -Bennett Cerf
- 14. What kind ofirony is evident in the cartoon?
- 15. What kind ofirony is evident in the comic strip?
- 16. What kind ofirony is evident in the comic strip?
- 17. What kind ofirony is evident in the comic strip?
Editor's Notes
- #3 Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are filled with ironies and paradoxes: Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday---but never jam to-day. 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. (Nilsenandamp; Nilsen 219-220)
- #4 People who can’t get a job until they have experience and who can’t get experience until they have a job are in a Catch-22. So are authors who can’t get their manuscripts published until they have an agent but can’t 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. A prisoner on death row refused to take the medication that would keep him sane. This is the kind of irony illustrated by many urban legends and contemporary novels, films, and plays. (Nilsenandamp; Nilsen 219)
- #5 The Greek philosophers often wrestled with paradoxes. The most famous was credited to the Cretan philosopher Epimenides: 'All Cretans are liars.' Epimenides was a Cretan. Therefore, If he is lying, then the statement must be true. But if the statement is true, he must be lying. (Nilsenandamp; Nilsen 219)
- #6 There are three different types of irony: Verbal, Dramatic and Situational