On Stylistics and Text Interpretation

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIALIZED EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

 

GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 

Philology faculty

 

The English language and Literature Department

 

 

COURSE PAPER

 

 

On Stylistics and Text Interpretation

                 

On theme: Irony

 

            

 

Compiled by: 1-34 group student Hamidova E.

                                             

Checked by: senior teacher Hamdamov E.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gulistan-2012

CONTENTS

 

I. INTRODUCTION………………...…………………………………………….3

II. THE MAIN PART……………………………………………………………..4

2.1 Irony and its Peculiarities………………………………………………………4

2.2 Types of Irony………………………………………………………………….7

2.2.1 Verbal irony, including sarcasm……………………………………………...7

2.2.2 Tragic Irony…………………………………………………………………..9

2.2.3 Dramatic Irony………………………………………………………………10

2.2.4 Situational Irony…………………………………………………………….11

2.2.5 Irony of fate (cosmic irony)…………………………………………………11

2.3 Usage controversy and Cultural Controversy of Irony………………………..13

III. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………..15

IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………...18

 

 

 

 

 

 

I. INTRODUCTION

 

Understanding a literary device like irony can only be made simple with the help of irony examples in literature. There are different types of irony that are used by authors and poets to express their views without overtly stating them. Irony examples in literature will help you understand how to use irony correctly.

"Brain research tells us that only twenty percent of human beings have a sense of irony, which means that eighty percent of the world takes everything at face value."

Doug Coupland, author of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture and the novelist responsible for bringing about the era of transgressive fiction, probably observed this as he noticed the lack of understanding for irony that most people in the world exhibit. A literary device that brings about a whole gamut of changes in prose and poetry by introducing wit and sarcasm, irony though heavily used, is hardly ever understood. The word irony can trace its origins to the Greek word eirōneía which meant hypocrisy or faking ignorance. It is a literary device in English language that uses incongruity of what is said and what is meant or understood as its basis. The meaning of the statement is beyond what is literally understood. There are different types of irony, with several different irony examples in literature, to elucidate the same. In this paper we discuss the different types of irony and their suitable examples.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. THE MAIN PART

2.1 Irony and Its Peculiarities

 

One of the main types of irony, verbal irony is the use of words in such a manner that there is a disparity in what is said and what is meant, that is, expression and intention. A person is said to have made use of verbal irony when the literary meaning of a sentence is in contrast to the meaning it is intended to have. Given below are some verbal irony examples in literature and popular media.

• One of the classic verbal irony examples in literature is from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, from the famous Friends, Romans, Countrymen... speech by Mark Anthony, where he says, "Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man."1
• Another good example from a Shakespearean play is from Macbeth. In Act 2, Lennox, in a conversation with Macbeth, talks about the events of the previous night which could not be categorized as anything but weird, to which Macbeth replies with a seemingly affirmative observation, "Twas a rough night." While Lennox is not able to grasp the full meaning of the statement, as a reader, you know that it is loaded with irony and is in reference to the murder of Duncan.
• George Orwell's allegorical commentary on communism, Animal Farm has many good irony examples. One of the best ones is the change of the commandments that the animals follow, from "No animal may drink alcohol," to No animal may drink alcohol in excess."
• One of the best verbal irony examples in songs in popular media is Stay Awake from the Julie Andrews starrer Mary Poppins, where she sings a song about staying awake to put her wards to sleep. This is also one of the most common irony examples for kids that teachers use to explain the concept.
• One of the most repeated examples of irony, especially sarcasm, is a conversation between Winston Churchill and a lady guest at a party he was attending, where the woman accused Mr. Churchill of being drunk, to which he retorted, "My dear, you are ugly … but tomorrow I shall be sober."

An example of irony.

Irony is when something happens that is opposite from what is expected. There are many types of irony, including:

Dramatic irony, when the audience knows something that's going to happen on stage that the characters on stage don't.

Socratic irony, when someone (usually a teacher) pretends to be stupid in order to show how stupid his pupils are (while at the same time the reader or audience understand the situation).

Cosmic irony, when something that everyone thinks will happen actually happens very differently.

Situational irony e.g. Mr Smith gets a parking ticket. Mr Smith is a traffic warden.

Definition

Irony is saying (or writing) one thing, whilst meaning the opposite.  The true meaning may be conveyed by vocabulary - or even by tone.

Examples

"So you've lost the keys. That's clever!"

"You're standing on my foot - thankyou!" 2

 

Use

Irony is a means of making a critical comment by casting a topic into a new light or reversing a perspective on it.

It is often used to make witty observations.

People using irony are distancing themselves from the subject in question.

There are various types of irony. They have in common the adoption of a distance from the subject for satirical or critical effect.

A speaker might take up an opponent's argument and then exaggerate it to reveal its weaknesses. This is Socratic irony.

Writers or speakers might pretend to hold opinions which are the exact opposite of what they truly believe. [The reader or listener must be alert and skillful to avoid being drawn into a trap.]

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience at a play know something of which the characters on stage are ignorant [the lover hidden in the next room].

Irony is often classed as a form of humour, along with sarcasm and satire. These do not necessarily evoke laughter, but rather a wry shrug or assent to the idea that the received world picture has been disturbed.

  NB! Irony should not be confused with sarcasm, which is a direct remark meant to wound or offend.

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what a speaker or a writer says and what he or she means, or is generally understood.

In modern usage it can also refer to particularly striking examples of incongruities observed in everyday life between what was intended or said and what actually happened.

There is some argument about what is or is not ironic, but all the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is said and what is meant; or between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens.

Irony can be funny, but it does not have to be.

The term Socratic irony, which was coined by Aristotle, refers to the Socratic Method. It is not irony in the modern sense of the word3.

  A "no smoking" notice adorns the Sherlock Holmes tiles in Baker Street tube station, a prime example of situational irony.

2.2 Types of Irony

 

Most modern theories of rhetoric distinguish between three types of irony: verbal, dramatic and situational.

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.

Dramatic (or tragic) 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 older definitions, situational irony and cosmic irony are not irony at all.

 

2.2.1 Verbal irony, including sarcasm

 

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 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. 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 have the form of a statement that means P(X) but which conveys the meaning not P:

as funny as cancer

as clear as mud

as pleasant as a root-canal

The irony is recognizable in each case only by using stereotypical knowledge of the source concepts (e.g., bowling balls, sledgehammers) 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.

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.

 

2.2.2 Tragic Irony

 

Tragic irony can only take place in a fictional context. In this form of irony, the words and actions of the characters belie the real situation, which the spectators fully realize.

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. Sophocles' Oedipus the King provides a classic example of tragic irony at its fullest and finest.

Irony threatens authoritative models of discourse by "removing the semantic security of ‘one signifier : one signified’";[2] 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 knife.

In O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi, 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, beautiful, prized hair. She, meanwhile, cuts off her treasured hair to sell it to a wig-maker for money to buy her husband a watch-chain.4

 

2.2.3 Dramatic Irony

 

In drama, 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 of placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters. Dramatic irony involves three stages: installation, exploitation and resolution.

For example:

In City Lights, we know that Charles Chaplin's character is not a millionaire, but the blind flower girl (Virginia Cherill) does not.

In Cyrano de Bergerac, we know 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, we know that Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is not Kaplan; Vandamm (James Mason) and his acolytes do not. We also know that Kaplan is a fictitious agent invented by the CIA; Roger and Vandamm do not.

In Oedipus the King, we know that Oedipus himself is the murderer that he is seeking; Oedipus, Creon and Jocasta do not.

In Othello, we know that Desdemona has been faithful to Othello, but he doesn't. We also know that Iago is pulling the strings, a fact hidden from Othello, Desdemona, Cassio and Rodrigo.

In Pygmalion, we know that Eliza is a woman of the street; Higgins's family does not.

In Titanic, we know that the ocean liner is going to hit an iceberg and sink, but the passengers and crew cannot know this.

 

 

2.2.4 Situational Irony

 

Irony of a situation is a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results when enlivened by 'perverse appropriateness'. This is a relatively modern use of the term -- see "Usage Controversy", below.

For example:

When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however a bullet ricocheted off the bullet-proof windows of the Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, the windows made to protect the President from gunfire were partially responsible for his being shot.

Monty Python's last comedy album The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album was continuously delayed from release for various reasons, having yet to see an official release, and has since been made available online for free by the group, thus making the album neither hasty nor earning the group a single buck.

In the novel Holes, the staff of a boys' juvenile detention center often chide boys who complained of harsh conditions with the message, "This isn't a Girl Scout camp." After an unnaturally long drought ends, the area fills back up into a lake, and is eventually converted into a Girl Scout camp.

 

2.2.5 Irony of fate (cosmic irony)

 

The common household 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 situational irony, it arises from sharp contrasts between reality and human ideals, or between human intentions and actual results.

For example:

In 1974 the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 80,000 of its own lapel buttons promoting toy safety. The buttons had paint with too much lead, sharp edges, and clips that could be broken off and swallowed. [3]

Importing Cane Toads to Australia to protect the environment only to create worse environmental problems for Australia.

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 (a death associated with sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles) while out jogging.

In the Kalgoorlie (Australia) gold rush of the 1890s, large amounts of the little-known mineral calaverite (gold telluride) were identified as fool's gold, and were discarded. The mineral deposits were used as a building material, and for the filling of potholes and ruts. (Several years later, the nature of the mineral was identified, leading to a minor gold rush to excavate the streets).

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. What we now refer to as "World War I" was originally called "The War to End All Wars"; this is 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.

For example:

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, with Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, saying, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Today computers are ubiquitous.

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Nearly the last words of American Civil War General John Sedgwick before being shot through the eye by a Confederate sniper.

In Dallas, in response to Mrs. Connally's comment, "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you," John F. Kennedy said, "That's very obvious." He was assassinated immediately afterwards.

 

 

2.3 Usage controversy and Cultural Controversy of Irony

 

There is considerable argument on the usage of the word "irony". 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.

The word ironic is sometimes used incorrectly 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. 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 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”. It is commonly stated that the song "Ironic" contains no actual examples of irony. It is sometimes suggested that Morissette intentionally misuses the term ironic in every example in the song "Ironic" for ironic effect.

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.