Irony Essay, Research Paper

Assignment: Freewrite on the irony in your every day life. Then polish

it up and write a paragraph about the irony you encounter.

Isn’t That Ironic?

In general, a discrepancy between appearances and reality is irony. Irony is

encountered thoughout our daily activies and comes in many forms; verbal, situational,

and cosmic. Verbal irony is the most familiar kind, this occurs when we understand that

the speaker’s meaning is far from the usual meaning. For example, Sally rushes all

morning to get to the parking lot early, only to find her space taken, she then exclaims,

“This is exacly why I rushed, just so I can hunt for a empty space.” We understand that

she is not happy, and that her meaning is not literal. A form of verbal irony is sarcasm,

this is when the statement made is ironic, but it is bitter, coarse, and vulgar. An example

of this is, a Beth says to Sally (who is covered in mud), “Oh Sally, you look so nice

today!” The comment from Beth is made out of spite, simply to be rude and unkind.

Sally understands that Beth’s real meaning is not what was said. The second form of

irony is situational, this form is often confused with cosmic, the difference between the

two is minimal. Situational irony is contradiction between what is expected to happen and

happens. In cosmic irony the contradiction takes place, but a supernatural force is said to

smoking campain, smokes. It would not be ironic for Kim to smoke, however the

circumstances make the situation ironic. However; Anne, the head of MADD, on her

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way to a meeting with the organization, is struck by a drunk driver and dies, not knowing

that the drunk driver,who survives without a scratch, was her son. This is an example of

both situational and cosmic irony. The situation is ironic but, a supernatural force seems

to have created the situation. An example of the third form of irony, cosmic, is found in

the story “The Necklace,” in which a wife loses a diamond necklace that was lended to

her, she and her husband work ten years to pay back the money they lended to buy a new

necklace, only to discover the original necklace was fake. In this story it is evident that a

supernatual being got invovled to punish the wife for her greed. Ironies are easy to find

in our daily activties; whether in statement, situation, or unexpected event.