Irony

1
Irony

• Verbal
• Dramatic
• Situational
• Cosmic (Fate)

2
Verbal Irony

• A Difference between what is said and what is
  meant.
• Sarcasm (Mocking a situation, person, or thing)
  After someone trips That was graceful.
• Hyperbole (Exaggeration/ Overstatement) To an
  idea you dont like Thats the best idea Ive
  heard in years. Of an idiot Theres a genius.
• Understatement (Downplaying) Someone loses a leg
  to frostbite It was a bit cold.

3
Dramatic Irony

• The audience knows something the character does
  not.
• You as the viewer or reader are telling the
  character not to go somewhere, believe someone,
  do something.

4
Examples

• In the William Shakespeare play, Romeo and
  Juliet, 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.
• Any horror film

5
Situational Irony

• A difference between what is expected to happen
  and what actually does.
• When you as the viewer or reader gasp Ahh.
• The Gift of the Magi

6
Examples

• Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor famous for his
  violence in film, campaigning against violence in
  video games in general - which ironically
  includes those featuring his own characters.
• An anti-technology website.

7
Irony of fate (cosmic irony)

• The idea that the gods are toying with your life.
• The artist Monet's loss of vision.
• Ludwig van Beethovens loss of hearing

8
More Examples

• 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."4 In 1988 he
  collapsed and died of a heart attack at age 40,
  after playing 10 NBA seasons.
• Jim Fixx, who did much to popularize jogging as a
  form of healthy exercise in his 1977 book "The
  Complete Book of Running", died at the age of 52
  of a heart attack while out jogging.