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Interlude - A word about Alanis
Rain on your wedding day is not ironic unless your spouse-to-be is the god of clement weather.
Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife is not ironic. In fact, if you're eating soup, it's actually quite handy.
A black fly in your chardonnay is just not, in any way, ironic. A simple contrast is not ironic. "Ooh, I'm a woman, you're a man, isn't that ironic?" "I'm a white guy, you're a black guy, wow, feel the irony".
No. And for the record, the above is not ironic but sarcastic. The song "Ironic" does not merit irony.
End of Interlude
Eggers strictly defines irony as a literary trope: "the use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their actual meaning". This is good because it excludes all those stupid zeitgeist grabbing pop songs,
But, I believe that you can have situations that are ironic. If it did rain on the day of your wedding to the God of Clement Weather, that would be truly ironic. Also, there's dramatic irony. For example:
�I, Iago, an evil sod, am driving the noble Othello to his doom. He doesn't know what an evil sod I am. But you, the audience, do! (thanks to the convenient dramatic conventions of �asides� and �soliloquies�.)�
�I, Oedipus, have just killed this nasty man and married a nice woman. But actually, the man is my father and the woman my mother and I will shortly discover this and poke my eyes out. You the audience know this. (thanks to the programme notes which gave away the ending.)�
This is the Elizabethan/Ancient Greek equivalent of the pantomime chant "look behind you", except in pantomimes today, however thick the good guy is (and we're talking able-to-be-played-by-Frank-Bruno thick), he eventually does look behind him, while in Othello, Oedipus, etc. the hero, despite often being quite clever, fails completely to look behind him and always gets the Shakespearean equivalent of being hit over the head with a mallet by the bad guy (sometimes Iago, sometimes Fate). There is also a more of a tendency towards blood and gore at the end, rather than hugs and marriages. Maybe they had stronger stomachs then.
Anyway. I digress. In these cases, and in many others, irony is not strictly about �the use of words� but applies to an actual situation. But in all cases, there is a conflict between different layers; there is something going on that is �different from and opposite to� the meaning, or the actuality. If I had to define irony, I would say it is "the conflict between the apparent and the actual, and the tension, and sometimes humour that results from it". This definition apples to language, and also to situations.
Coming Soon: Irony and Allusion
Irony and Politics
Irony and hypocrisy: two sides of the same coin?
Parody, satire, irony
1) Which of these historical ironies is not true?
a) Henry Kissinger, mass-murderer, once won the Nobel Peace Prize
b) Henry Kissinger presented Rupert Murdoch with the award of "Humanitarian of the Year"
c) Rupert Murdoch's newspaper, The Sun, began life as a trade union paper.
That's all the questions, but in case of stalemate, here is a tie-breaker:
Describe the concept of Communism in 100 words or less.
Points are awarded for accuracy, and also innaccuracy, if it's humorous.
Send your answers to [email protected]. Whoever I like wins.