Irony

Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or pretended ignorance) is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does and what one means or what is generally understood. Irony is a mode of expression that calls attention to the character's knowledge and that of the audience.

There is argument about what qualifies as ironic, but all senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is expressed and what is intended, or between an understanding or expectation of a reality and what actually happens: the literal truth is in direct discordance to the perceived truth.

Types of irony

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

  • Verbal irony is a disparity(不一致)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, 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 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 begin with the deceptive formation of a statement that means P but which eventually conveys the meaning not P:

  • as hard as putty (油灰, 腻子)
  • as funny as cancer
  • as clear as mud
  • as pleasant as a root canal(根管) treatment
  • "as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake"

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. 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 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. 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?"), and joke ("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 clergymen 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; Fortunato is oblivious.
  • 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.

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 results when enlivened by 'perverse appropriateness'.

For example:

  • When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however a bullet bounced off the bullet-proof Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, a vehicle made to protect the President from gunfire was partially responsible for him being shot.
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a story whose plot revolves around irony. Dorothy travels to a wizard and fulfills her challenging demands to go home, before discovering she had the ability to go back home all the time. The Scarecrow longs for intelligence, only to discover he is already a genius, and the Tin Woodsman longs to be capable of love, only to discover he already has a heart. The Lion, who at first appears to be a whimpering coward, turns out to be bold and fearless. The people in EmeraldCity believe the Wizard to have been a powerful deity, only to discover he was a bumbling eccentric old man.
  • After astronautGus Grissom's first flight into space, the hatch on his spacecraft accidentally blew off while Grissom was waiting for a rescue helicopter to fish the capsule out of the ocean, causing the capsule to fill with water and sink and Grissom to nearly drown. The hatch system was re-designed in later spacecraft to prevent similar accidents, and, while training for his third spaceflight, a fire broke out inside Grissom's spacecraft, causing Grissom and two other astronauts to suffocate. The hatch redesign triggered by the accident with Grissom's first spacecraft, meant to help save astronauts' lives, prevented Grissom from being rescued in the subsequent fire accident.
  • In Minority Report, John Anderton is the Police Chief of Precrime (a system predicting murders and identifying victims and killers) and discovers that he will kill someone, however he runs (to avoid imprisonment and prove his innocence) from the system he wanted to work for after his son was kidnapped and presumed dead. Also, it's later revealed that Precrime Director Lamar Burgess underhandedly murdered the mother of the precogs otherwise Precrime would've never existed. Burgess committed murder to start Precrime, which was created to stop murder.

Satire

Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humour in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.

A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison,and analogy are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, however, is that "in satire, irony is militant". This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack.

Term

The word satire comes from Latin satura lanx and means "medley, dish of colourful fruits" —it was held by Quintilian to be a "wholly Roman phenomenon". This derivation properly has nothing to do with the Greek mythological figure satyr. To Quintilian, the satire was a strict literary form, but the term soon escaped from its original narrow definition.

Satire (in the modern sense of the word) is found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, and media such as song lyrics.

The term is also today applied to many works other than those which would have been considered satire by Quintilian — including, for instance, ancient Greek authors predating the first Roman satires. Public opinion in the Athenian democracy, for example, was remarkably influenced by the political satire written by such comic poets as Aristophanes for the theatre.

Satire and humour

Satirical works often contain "straight" (non-satirical) humour — usually to give some relief from what might otherwise be relentless "preaching". This has always been the case, although it is probably more marked in modern satire. On the other hand some satire has little or no humour at all. It is not "funny" — nor is it meant to be.

Humour about a particular subject (politics, religion and art for instance) is not necessarily satirical because the subject itself is often a subject of satire. Nor is humour using the great satiric tools of irony, parody, or burlesque always meant in a satirical sense.

Types of Satire

When examining satirical literature, it is helpful to understand that there are two common forms of satire: Horatian and Juvenalian.

Horatian

Named for the Roman satirist, Horace, this type of satire is meant to be playful. It seeks to criticize some vice in society (often times identified as foolish rather than evil) through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. Tools employed in this form are wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating (自贬的) humour. This form is often sympathetic in tone. Horatian satire is far more common in modern society.

Examples of Horatian satire: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, and Matt Groening’s The Simpsons.

Juvenalian

Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is far darker. Unlike Horatian satire, Juvenalian satire seeks to immediately correct some evil in society through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. Common traits of this form are irony, sarcasm, moral indignation, and often times, humour is completely lacking. This form is very pessimistic in tone.

Examples of Juvenalian satire: Johnathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Samuel Johnson’s “London,” George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange.

Early modern western satire

The Elizabethan (i.e. 16th century English) writers thought of satire as related to the notoriously rude, coarse and sharp satyr play. Elizabethan "satire" (typically in pamphlet form) therefore contains more straight forward abuse than subtle irony. The French Huguenot Isaac Casaubon pointed out in 1605 that satire in the Roman fashion was something altogether more civilised. 17th century English satire once again aimed at the "amendment of vices" (Dryden).

Direct social commentary via satire returned with a vengeance in the 16th century, when farcical texts such as the works of François Rabelais tackled more serious issues (and incurred the wrath of the crown as a result). In the Age of Enlightenment, an intellectual movement in the 17th and 18th century advocating rationality, began the breakthrough of English satire, largely due to the creation of Tory and Whig groups and the necessity to convey the true meaning of criticism, especially true for Daniel Defoe (The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters), Jonathan Swift, John Dryden and Alexander Pope. Here, astute and biting satire of institutions and individuals became a popular weapon. Although Early Modern satire was already an established genre, Isaac Casaubon discovered and published Quintilian's writing and presented the original meaning of the term (satira, not satyr), and the sense of wittiness (reflecting the "dishfull of fruits") became more important again.

Jonathan Swift was one of the greatest of Anglo-Irish satirists, and one of the first to practise modern journalistic satire. For instance, his “A Modest Proposal” suggests that poor Irish parents be encouraged to sell their own children as food. In his book Gulliver's Travels he writes about the flaws in human society in general and English society in particular. Swift creates a moral fiction, a world in which parents do not have their most obvious responsibility, which is to protect their children from harm. Similarly, Defoe presents a world in which freedom of religion is reduced to the freedom to conform. Swift's purpose is of course to attack indifference to the plight of the desperately poor, and Defoe's to advocate freedom of conscience.

John Dryden also wrote an influential essay on satire that helped fix its definition in the literary world.

Early American satire

Ebenezer Cooke, author of "The Sot-Weed Factor," was among the first to bring satire to the British colonies; Benjamin Franklin and others followed, using satire to shape an emerging nation's culture through shaping its sense of the ridiculous.

Mark Twain was a great American satirist: his novel Huckleberry Finn is set in the antebellum South, where the moral values Twain wishes to promote are completely turned on their heads. His hero, Huck, is a rather simple but good-hearted lad who is ashamed of the "sinful temptation" that leads him to help a runaway slave. In fact his conscience – warped by the distorted moral world he has grown up in, often bothers him most when he is at his best. Ironically, he is prepared to do good, believing it to be wrong.