Abuses and Misunderstandings of Irony
Irony can be very basically defined as a rhetorical devise wherein a writer or speaker says something different than what they mean. A closer analysis of this defintion shows that, in irony, there is always an author who is using an ironic, as opposed to a literal one, to send some kind of message.
There are two basic settings in which the term 'irony' is abused. One
is in everyday discussion--in a casual environment. The other is by
those who have extensively studied or written on literary theory.
In the first setting, the term is most often thought of in terms of
situational or cosmic irony. This type of irony thinks of "fate" (or
perhaps God) as an author, and suggests that it is using irony in its
dictation of everyday events. For example, there is the classic
instance in which a person who is terrified of flying finally, to calm
their neurosis, decides to take a plane trip solely to get over their
fear. Then, the plane crashes. In this sense, it was Fate or God that
created this ironic twist. However, the "rhetorical device" of the basic definition is frequently ignored, although, even in this situation, there is a designer or author (fate) who is using a rhetorical device (irony) to send a message. In this case, the message would probably be that life is too short to waste with phobias, when at any moment a person could die anyway.
Using irony to describe this situation is appropriate. However, because it is so commonly used in this manner,
many people first hear of irony not a rhetorical device used
in writing or speech, but rather as something that defines coincidence.
Thus, people begin to use the term to refer to simple coincidences,
like running into a person after one has just spoken about them to
someone else. Perhaps if this person has been spoken of in a negative
light, or if the speaker has said, "I never want to see them again,"
this could be spoken of as irony, but the situation in itself is not
necessarily ironic. However, for casual purposes, using irony to
describe this situation seems appropriate. It is this casual usage of
the term which often leads to people not understanding irony in any
other way.
In the other setting, the term irony is often extended and used to
discuss different rhetorical devices which can be thought of as
existing in the "realm" of irony, but are very different from what is
usually studied as irony.
If irony is very basically defined as a rhetorical device wherein the person says or writes
something different than what they actually mean, for rhetorical effect
or purpose, then, by logic, this can be extended, and has been by many literary
theorists, to refer to several literary devices, such as simile,
metaphor, and hyperbole. Certainly, the speaker does not mean that,
"When he ran, he became the wind." This is a way of describing that the
subject ran very quickly-he was not actually the wind. The fact that
this corresponds, to a certain extent, with the dictionary definition
of the term "irony" can often lead to confusion and ambiguity among
interpreting ironic texts. A person can not exactly argue that most
figurative language is, in a sense, ironic, in that it means something
different than what it is said. Because of this, specific
categorization and labeling has developed to help us speak of irony
with more clarity.
Perhaps, to understand irony, it would be helpful to examine when it is used in everyday speech.
Next:Irony in Speech
Previous: Introduction
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