Irony
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Irony, from the Greek εἴρων (eiron), is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). Irony may also arise from a discordance between acts and results, especially if it is striking, and known to a later audience. A certain kind of irony may result from the act of pursuing a desired outcome, resulting in the opposite effect, but again, only if this is known to a third party. In this case the aesthetic arises from the realization that an effort is sharply at odds with an outcome, and that in fact the very effort has been its own undoing.
More generally, irony is understood as an aesthetic valuation by an audience, which relies on a sharp discordance between the real and the ideal, and which is variously applied to texts, speech, events, acts, and even fashion. All the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity, or a gap, between an understanding of reality, or expectation of a reality, and what actually happens.
There are different kinds of irony. For example:
- Tragic (or dramatic) irony occurs when a character on stage or in a story is ignorant, but the audience watching knows his or her eventual fate, as in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet.
- Socratic irony takes place when someone (classically a teacher) pretends to be foolish or ignorant, in order to expose the ignorance of another (and the teaching-audience, but not the student-victim, realizes the teacher's ploy).
- Cosmic irony is a sharp incongruity between our expectation of an outcome and what actually occurs.
H. W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, had this to say of irony:
- Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders’ incomprehension.[1]
Irony has some of its foundation in the onlooker’s perception of paradox which arises from insoluble problems. For example, in June 2005, the State of Virginia Employment Agency, which handles unemployment compensation, announced that they would lay off 400 employees for lack of work, because unemployment was so low in the state. Although this outcome could have been logically anticipated (solving the problem would be expected to re-created a minor version of it again, as a result), the reader’s perception of a disconnection between common expectation, and the application of logic in an unexpected outcome, both contain an element of irony.
The connection between irony and humor is somewhat revealed, when the surprise at what should have expected, startles us into laughter. However, not all irony is humorous: “grim irony” and “stark irony” are familiar.
Contents |
[edit] Socratic irony
Socratic irony is feigning ignorance in order to expose the weakness of another’s position.
The Greek word eironeia—ειρωνεία applied particularly to understatement in the nature of dissimulation. Such irony occurred especially and notably in the assumed ignorance which Socrates adopted as a method of dialectic, the “Socratic irony.” Socratic irony involves a profession of ignorance that disguises a skeptical, non-committed attitude towards some dogma or universal opinion that lacks a basis in reason or in logic. Socrates’ “innocent” inquiries expose step by step the vanity or illogicality of the proposition by unsettling the assumptions of his dialogue partner by questioning or simply not sharing his basic assumptions. The irony entertains those onlookers who know that Socrates is wiser than he permits himself to appear and who may perceive slightly in advance the direction the “naïve” questioning will take. Fowler describes it:
- The two parties in his audience were, first, the dogmatist, moved by pity and contempt to enlighten this ignorance, and, secondly, those who knew their Socrates and set themselves to watch the familiar game in which learning should be turned inside out by simplicity.
Many have interpreted Socrates as not feigning ignorance so much as expressing a form of philosophical skepticism.
Television journalist Louis Theroux demonstrated expert use of Socratic irony to his audience, by interviewing a number of diverse individuals with an air of relaxed naïveté and appreciative curiosity. This has led to his subjects becoming less guarded and more open in answering questions than they would have been in a more adversarial dialogue, while more often than not also granting Theroux subtle control of the interview.
In his character of Ali G, Sacha Baron Cohen uses Socratic irony to satirical effect. For instance, in one sketch he interviews a professor from the National Poison Information Centre about recreational drug use. Ali’s pretended stupidity in the form of asking questions such as “Does Class A drugs absolutely guarantee that they is [sic] better quality?” elicits a response that makes drugs look like any other consumer article.
The 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard admired Socratic irony and used a variation of Socratic irony in many of his works. Kierkegaard wrote on Socratic irony in his master’s thesis, titled On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. In the thesis, Kierkegaard praises Plato’s and Aristophanes’ use of Socratic irony, and argues that Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds most accurately captured the spirit of Socratic irony.
[edit] Roman irony
In Roman times, irony was used in public speaking and rhetoric, in which the words used were opposite their meaning or intent[citation needed].
Shakespeare imitated Roman irony in his play Julius Caesar in Mark Antony’s speech: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." (III, ii, 78-79), continually emphasizing that Brutus and the conspirators "are honourable men." The subsequent monologue uses extensive irony to glorify Caesar; Antony selects words that seem to support the assassins, while his purpose and his effect is to incite the crowd against them.
[edit] Verbal irony
One classic example is a speaker saying, “What lovely weather we are having!” as she looks out at a rainstorm intending to express her dissatisfaction with the weather. However, 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.
Verbal irony is distinguished from related phenomena such as 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 her voice while truly trying to claim she's not upset, it would not be verbal irony just 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 she was upset by claiming she was 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.
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!" (Note that this could easily be spoken literally by a person who believes in spiritual healing as a legitimate treatment for cancer.) 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 (see examples below).
Research shows that most instances of verbal irony are considered to be 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 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 (Gibbs, 2000). 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 folk taxonomies 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.
[edit] Types of irony
The word “irony” is frequently used figuratively, especially in such phrases as “the irony of fate,” of an issue or result that seems to contradict normal expectations derived from the previous state or condition.
[edit] Situational irony
Players and events coming together in improbable situations creating a tension between expected and real results. Situational irony occurs when the results of a situation are far different from what was expected. This results in a feeling of surprise and unfairness due to the odd situation.
Examples:
- A shipboard scene of reconciliation and hope for an estranged couple ends with the camera pulling back to reveal a life preserver stenciled “RMS Titanic.”
- A situation immortalized in O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi, in which a young couple is too poor to buy each other Christmas gifts. The man finally pawns his heirloom pocket watch to buy his wife a set of combs for her long, prized, beautiful hair. She, meantime, cuts her hair to sell to a wigmaker for money to buy her husband a watch-chain. The irony is twofold: the couple, having parted with their tangible valuables, is caused by the act to discover the richness of the intangible.
- A man goes over a giant waterfall e.g. Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives, only to take a cleanup shower where he slips on the soap and dies from trauma and drowning.
- An anti-capitalist website sells anti-capitalism T-shirts for a profit.
- A capitalist company or corporation selling anti-capitalist T-shirts at all.
- A house is burnt down by a fire, the owner is deeply depressed by it when later discovered that the cause of the fire was by stress relief candles.
- A firehouse burns down.
- An ambulance runs over someone.
[edit] Irony of fate (cosmic irony)
The expression “irony of fate” stems from the notion that the gods (or the Fates) are amusing themselves by toying with the minds of mortals, with deliberate ironic intent. Closely connected with cosmic irony, it arises from sharp contrasts between reality and human ideals, or between human intentions and actual results. Minor examples are daily life situations such as the rain that sets in immediately after one finishes watering one’s garden, following many days of putting off watering in anticipation of rain. Sharper examples can include situations in which the consequences are more dramatic.
For example:
- The artist Monet's loss of vision, but not hearing.
- Ludwig van Beethoven’s loss of hearing, but not vision.
- The 1956 loss by fire of the top of Harvard’s Memorial Hall tower, while being restored by workmen to make sure it would last for generations.
- Both tetraethyl lead and the chlorofluorocarbon Freon-12 were invented as safe chemicals (both by Chemist and mechanical engineer Thomas Midgley), and intended for wide environmental use. However, both compounds were environmental disasters: the first resulting in widespread lead poisoning, and the second class of compounds in widespread harm to the ozone layer.
- American astronaut Gus Grissom's death inside Apollo 1 may have been partly because of a spacecraft redesign that he had recommended after the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission. After a Mercury hatch opened prematurely, nearly causing his death, Grissom had recommended the Apollo hatch be made more difficult to open. The new hatch proved too difficult to open.
- At the turn of the 19th century, Charles Justice, a prison inmate at the Ohio State Penitentiary, devised an idea to improve the efficiency of the restraints on the electric chair. After a parole, he was convicted in a robbery/murder and returned to prison 13 years later under a death sentence. On November 9, 1911, he was electrocuted in the same electric chair that he had helped to improve.[citation needed] One might say that his name was 'Justice', it would be ironic that he went through the justice system. However, it is best described as 'coincidence', as nobody would expect a person's last name to influence his behavior (see nominative determinism).
- Organic farming and health expert J.I. Rodale declared in a New York Times Magazine interview on June 4, 1971 that "I'm going to live to be 100, unless I'm run down by a sugar-crazed taxi driver". The very next day he was a guest on The Dick Cavett Show and appeared to fall asleep while another guest was speaking, only to be found dead of a heart attack.
- Years before his death, at the age of 23, basketball star "Pistol" Pete Maravich told a Pennsylvania reporter, "I don't want to play 10 years [in the NBA] and then die of a heart attack when I'm 40." In 1988 he collapsed and died of a heart attack at age 40, after playing 10 NBA seasons.
- In 2002, fledgling gaming company, Infinium Labs, announced production of a gaming console to compete against perennial powerhouses Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The project is delayed for years as features are cut off from the product, from media interface to proprietary software. In the end, it was revamped to be strictly a software based PC gaming download service. However, even in its stripped down state, the product has still been delayed. It is because of this that the system is often used as an example of Vaporware. The name of the proposed system: The Phantom.
[edit] Historical irony (cosmic irony through time)
When history is seen through modern eyes, it sometimes happens that there is an especially sharp contrast between the way historical figures see their world and the probable future of their world, and what actually transpired. When the World War which began the 20th century was called The War to End All Wars, this later became an example of historical irony. Historical irony is therefore a subset of cosmic irony, but one in which the element of time is bound up. Examples:
- When the telephone was invented, some people were especially quick to see the possibilities. One man even said: "I can easily see that every town will want one."
- Contrasting statements were made at the dawn of computers, which were initially thought to be devices never capable of use outside a government or academic setting.
Historical irony is often encapsulated into statement:
- "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Nearly the last words of American Civil War General John Sedgwick [1]
- In response to Mrs. Connally's comment, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you." John F. Kennedy uttered his last words, "That's very obvious." [2]
[edit] Fiction
A typical use of irony of fate occurs in the climax of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Frollo, the villain, stands upon a gargoyle. He raises his sword to strike Esmeralda, and says, “And He shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit!” At that moment, the gargoyle breaks off, sending Frollo falling to his death into the courtyard, filled with molten lead that Quasimodo had spilled to stop the oncoming guards. The irony is that Frollo’s line is used in reference to Esmeralda, but instead it winds up applying to Frollo himself as he plunges into the fiery pit of molten lead.
Situations resembling poetic justice, but lacking the aspect of justice, may also be ascribed to the irony of fate.
[edit] Tragic irony (dramatic irony)
In tragedy, what is called "tragic irony" becomes a device for heightening the intensity of a dramatic situation. Tragic irony particularly characterized the drama of ancient Greece, owing to the familiarity of the spectators with the legends on which so many of the plays were based. In this form of irony, the words and actions of the characters belie the real situation, which the spectators fully realize. It may take several forms: the character speaking may realize the irony of his words while the rest of the characters may not; or he or she may be unconscious while the other actors share the knowledge with the spectators; or the spectators may alone realize the irony. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King provides a classic example of tragic irony at its fullest and finest.
Irony may come to expression in inappropriate behavior. A witness to a scene involving threats of violence, for example, may perceive continued politeness on the part of the victim as increasingly ironic as it becomes increasingly inappropriate. Sometimes the “second” audience is the private self of the ironist.
When not recognized, irony can lead to misunderstanding. Even if an ironic statement is recognized as such, it often expresses less clearly what the speaker or writer wants to say than would a direct statement.
Another famous case of tragic irony occurs 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 knife. Also in the play Richard III the play is full of dramatic irony, many of the lines Richard says are the complete antithesis of what he and the audience know he is thinking.
[edit] Comic irony
Layers of comic irony pervade (as an example) Jane Austen’s novels. The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice famously opens with a nearly mathematical postulate. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” The scene that follows immediately betrays the proposal. “No, a rich young man moving into the neighborhood did not come to seek a wife.” In fact, it soon becomes clear that Austen means the opposite: women (or their mothers) are always in search of, and desperately on the lookout for, a rich single man to make a husband. The irony deepens as the story promotes his romance and ends in a double wedding.
Comic irony from television sketch-comedy has the distinction over literary comic irony in that it often incorporates elements of absurdity. For instance, an ironic situation might involve getting hit by a rib-delivery truck after trying to poison someone with bad rib-sauce in order to steal his or her gems. Reference: Season 4 Cycle 1—SCTV Network / 90 Show 2, Polynesiantown.
Comic irony has long been a staple of cartoons, in which the action is free to be unrealistic. An example is a notable Far Side cartoon in which a hapless cat is trapped against an inside house window, having to watch the once-in-a-lifetime consequences of a collision outside between a truck labeled "Al's Rodents," and another labeled "Ernie's Small Flightless Birds."
[edit] Metafiction
Metafiction is a kind of fiction which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. Metafiction (or “romantic irony” in the sense of roman the prose fiction) refers to the effect when a story is interrupted to remind the audience or reader that it is really only a story. Examples include Henry Fielding’s interruptions of the storyline to comment on what has happened, or J.M. Barrie’s similar interjections in his book, Peter Pan. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events could also be considered a form of romantic irony, in which the action is frequently halted for a warning that the events to follow could be potentially distressing. The concept is also explored in a philosophical context in Sophie’s World, by Jostein Gaarder. A similar example occurs in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy novel where the narrator reveals in advance “in the interest of reducing stress” that nobody will get hurt by a pair of incoming nuclear warheads, but that he will leave some suspense by stating that he would not reveal whose upper arm would get bruised in the process. The irony is that no suspense is caused due to the fact that only one character in the story has an upper arm. A notable attempt to sustain metafiction throughout a whole novel is Christie Malry's Own Double Entry by B.S. Johnson, in which we are frequently reminded that none of the characters are real and exist only within the author's imagination.
[edit] Irony as infinite, absolute negativity
While many reputable critics limit irony to something resembling Aristotle's definition, an influential set of texts insists that it be understood, not as a limited tool, but as a disruptive force with the power to undo texts and readers alike. This tradition includes Søren Kierkegaard, 19th-century German critic and novelist Friedrich Schlegel ("On Incomprehensibility"), Charles Baudelaire, Stendhal, and the 20th-century deconstructionist Paul de Man ("The Concept of Irony"). Briefly, it insists that irony is, in Kierkegaard's words, "infinite, absolute negativity". Where much of philosophy attempts to reconcile opposites into a larger positive project, Kierkegaard and others insist that irony — whether expressed in complex games of authorship or simple litotes — must, in Kierkegaard's words, "swallow its own stomach". Irony entails endless reflection and violent reversals, and ensures incomprehensibility at the moment it compels speech. Not surprisingly, irony is the favorite textual property of deconstructionists.
There is more at stake here than a simple quibble over a dictionary definition. Holocaust writer Tadeusz Borowski's brief and fiendishly complex short story "The Death of Schillinger" shows how irony infects not just Holocaust literature, but the acts and lives of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders alike. Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy provokes horrified laughter because it ruthlessly exposes cultural norms about race, sex, religion and national origin, often all in the same sketch. Both take on the atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries without providing a stable perspective from which to judge or a positive program that right-thinking people might pursue. Instead, Borowski and Cohen render any possible position absurd. Any definition of irony quickly becomes mired in philosophy's bitterest debates.
[edit] Usage controversy
The material above deals with the primary dictionary meaning of the word irony. There is no controversy that the usage above is a correct usage; the controversy is over whether it is the only correct usage. Authority, in the form of dictionaries and usage guides, can be cited on both sides.
Descriptivists generally discount such self-proclaimed language authorities in favor of studying how individuals currently use the word.
It is currently quite common to hear the word ironic used as a synonym for incongruous or coincidental in situations where there is no “double audience,” and no contradiction between the ostensible and true meaning of the words. Two examples 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.
- Adolph Coors III was the former heir to the Coors beer empire. Ironically, Coors was allergic to beer.
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.” This definition still allows the above usage but excludes examples like Alanis Morissette’s “It's a traffic jam when you're already late” for a meeting, unless perhaps the topic of the meeting were traffic congestion, not something implied by the lyrics of “Ironic”.
The American Heritage Dictionary recognizes a 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 word incongruity is not in the active vocabulary for most speakers of the English language, irony being much more widespread among those wanting to be precise in their language.
Other historical prescriptivists have even stricter definitions for the word irony. 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.” Fowler would thus consider the Sullivan example above as incorrect usage.
[edit] Recent developments
"Irony" as popularly used during the 1990s referred to an aesthetic equated with a fondness for kitsch and cultivation of mediocre artwork (bongo albums, "space-age bachelor pad music"), which gave an aesthetic pleasure comparable to that of camp.
Irony has many times been erroneously used in place of the phenomenon of coincidence. One of the higher profile misuses of the word in this context was Alanis Morissette’s popular 1995 song “Ironic”. It breathed new life into the ongoing controversy over the definition of irony. The song attracted a great deal of attention from prescriptivists[citation needed] for its (arguably) flagrant misuse of the word ironic. Morissette’s alleged misuses of the word include the following:
- It's like rain / on your wedding day
- It’s a traffic jam / when you’re already late
It should be noted however, that in the second example above the fictional speaker does, in fact, use verbal irony as described in the above section. Applying cosmic irony to the song renders many, but not all, of the lines somewhat ironic. For instance, in the song, a man gets on a plane for the first time after being afraid to do so his whole life, and the plane crashes. It is contrary to expectations that his first plane ride coincided with the relatively low chance of a plane crash.
Among those who assert that the song uses an invalid definition of irony, many find it ironic that Morissette would write a song titled “Ironic” with no actual irony in it. In 2004, Morissette herself acknowledged that the song doesn’t live up to the definition, which is what makes it ironic.
A comedic comment on Morrisette's song is given by Ed Byrne in his stylings about the usage (or misusage) of the term (widely available on YouTube).
Sarcasm and irony are often mistaken for one another. The common misconception was parodied on the "George Wendt Show". Teen: Dude, stop being so ironic! George: Actually, I was being sarcastic, ironic is that you didn't know the difference! Dave Eggers’ novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius contains a lengthy discourse criticizing what the author regards as the misuse of the word irony.
It may be that popular usage patterns are shifting the predominant meaning of irony toward references to ironies of fate. Whether this has been caused, exemplified or popularized by the American Heritage Dictionary (or by Alanis Morissette) is unclear.
[edit] Cultural variation
Irony often requires a cultural backdrop to be understood or noticed, and as with any culture-specific idiom, irony often cannot be perfectly transplanted. An expression with a secondary meaning clear to an east-coast American may be obscure to a Canadian, Briton, Australian, or even a west-coast American, though they ostensibly all speak the same language. Attempting a literal translation of an ironic idiom to another language often renders the concept muddled or incoherent. Further, the use of verbal irony may also rely on non-literal cues such as tone of voice or posture. Every culture incorporates its own form of linguistic metaphor, idiom and subtlety. In such cases, translation requires extra care, and perhaps explanation.
[edit] Bibliography
- ^ Modern English Usage Reprinted 1939 (with corrections), 1959. pp295-6
- Star, William T. "Irony and Satire: A Bibliography." Irony and Satire in French Literature. Ed. University of South Carolina Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina College of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1987. 183-209.
- Bogel, Fredric V. "Irony, Inference, and Critical Understanding." Yale Review 69 (1980): 503-19.
[edit] External links
- "The final irony"—a Guardian article about irony, use and misuse of the term
- Article on the etymology of Irony
- AHD Definition of irony
- AHD Definition of and usage note for ironic
