Title: IRONY and PARADOX
1IRONY and PARADOX
- by Don L. F. Nilsen and
- Alleen Pace Nilsen
2Roadside Ironies
3Irony A Definition
- The word IRONY comes from the Greek eiron meaning
dissembler in speech. - In modern English, the term usually refers to
speech incidents in which the intended meaning of
the words is contrary to their literal
interpretation.
4HISTORICALLY, IRONY IN LITERATURE developed
during the Age of the Enlightenmentthe time of
Voltaire, Hume, Pope, Dryden, Swift, Addison,
Steele, and Diderot however it has a long
history as in these examples.
- In Chaucers 14th-century Canterbury Tales, an
unhappily married merchant grandly praises
marriage. - In Shakespeares Julius Caesar, Marc Antonys
extravagant praise of Caesar is ironic. - Jonathan Swifts 18th-century Modest Proposal
putting forward the idea that the English should
start eating Irish babies was ironic. - A related irony is that some of Swifts opponents
read his ironic proposal as legitimate and
therefore attempted to have Swift declared insane.
5- There is double irony in O. Henrys 1906 story
The Gift of the Magi in which a husband sells
his watch to buy gold combs for his wifes hair
while she sells her hair to buy a gold chain for
his watch. - This is similar to the joke about the two
friends, one a Catholic and one a Protestant, who
try to convert each other. They presented such
convincing arguments that the Protestant became a
Catholic and the Catholic became a Protestant. - In the 1980s, Art Buchwald observed about Gary
Trudeau that as with all successful
anti-Establishment figures, Mr. Trudeau will
soon be an honored member of the Establishment.
6DRAMATIC IRONY IN LITERATURE occurs when the
audience, or one of the characters, knows
something that the other characters do not.
- Jerzy Kosinskis novel and the movie Being There
is the story of a mentally disabled gardener
named Chauncey Gardner. Because of unusual
circumstances, Chauncey is mistaken for a sage
and a great visionary. As he makes ordinary
comments appropriate to a gardener, his listeners
supply grandiose metaphorical meanings. - In George Bernard Shaws play, Major Barbara, one
of the tensest moments for the audience is when
they learn that the shed, just entered by a
character who casually lit a cigarette, is filled
with high explosives. -
7Even young children have the skill to appreciate
dramatic irony
- In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, kindergarten
children are amused that while the bears are
puzzled, they know what happened to Baby Bears
porridge. - They also like the fun of seeing how the youngest
goat, in the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff,
sets out to fool the troll who lives under the
bridge. - And in the modern picture book, Miss Nelson Is
Missing by Harry Allard and James Marshall,
children are amused that by looking carefully at
the pictures, they knowwhile the students in the
classroom do notthat the horrible, mean
substitute teacher Miss Viola Swamp, is really
their kind and loving Miss Nelson in disguise.
8IRONY VS. SATIRE
- Critic Northrop Frye makes a distinction between
satire and irony. He says that satire is a
criticism of society with a clear understanding
in the authors mind of what society should be
like, but is not. - The author of a satire hopes to persuade readers
to work for the authors vision as does C.S.
Lewis in his Screwtape Letters. - Those who create gallows humor and irony do not
intend to point their readers in a particular
direction, but instead to leave them in doubt. - As Frye says, Whenever a reader is not sure what
the authors attitude is or what his own is
supposed to be, we have irony with relatively
little satire.
9One Definition of Irony is That it Inspires the
Receiver of the Message to Ponder its Meaning
- What does the message on this pickup mean?
- Is the owner saying he chooses Arizona, NOT
California? - Or is he saying that he chooses Not Arizona, but
California? - Is this irony or just ambiguity?
10Examples of Irony
11Many modern critics make only a two-way
distinction between LINGUISTIC and. SITUATIONAL
humor.
- Linguistic irony requires a sender and a
receiver, while situational irony requires only
an observer with a clever mind as when Lily
Tomlin buys a waste basket. - The clerk puts it into a paper sack so she can
take it home, and the first thing Tomlin does
when she gets home is to put the paper sack into
the waste basket. - Derek Evans and Dave Fulwilers Whos Nobody in
America is filled with such ironic complaints as
the one from James M. Gatwood of San Ramon,
California. In seven visits to his dentist he
spent 2,800 and the dentist still calls him
Sidney. Gatwood asks in frustration, Who the
hell is Sidney?
12STABLE IRONY VS. OBSERVABLE IRONY
- Literary critic Wayne Booth uses the term stable
irony to refer to that which humans create to be
heard or read and understood with some precision.
He says that stable ironies allow readers
glimpses into authors most private thoughts. - An example of Observable (or Situational) Irony
is when a premature monsoon ruins an armys
invasion plans or when lightning strikes just as
a preacher raises his arms to make a dramatic
point about God. - In such situations, all that is needed is an
aware observer. Writers and dramatists often
work such observable ironies into their plots.
13Friends Of Irony
- http//www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1715592/Fr
iendsofirony/
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15More Examples of Irony
16Paradox vs. Contradiction
- Because paradoxes appear to be contradictions,
they are ironic in that observers must view the
paradox from two competing points of view. They
seem contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd, but
in some sense are true. -
- While highlighting breakdowns in our expectations
of a logical universe, they are sources of both
delight and consternation as the human mind works
to figure out how people can in good faith talk
about a large mouse running between the legs of
a small elephant, or can make sense out of the
Yiddish curse, He should drop dead, God forbid!
17Paradoxes Are Sometimes the Result of Paradigm
Shifts in the History of Ideas
- For example the most basic or earliest meaning of
man may have been in contrast to animal, i.e.
human cf. beast. - But then it took on a meaning man in contrast to
woman, followed by the word acquiring such
additional meanings as bravery and noble
behavior. - It was in this sense that David Ben-Gurion in the
1970s called Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir,
The best man in government. - DO WE STILL HAVE CONFUSIONSAND SOMETIMES
HUMORREVOLVING AROUND THE WORD MAN?
18PARADOXES IN CHILDRENS LITERATURE
- From Lemony Snicket
- It doesnt take courage to kill someone It
takes a severe lack of moral stamina. - Assumptions are dangerous things to makebombs,
for instance, or strawberry shortcakeif you make
even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in
terrible trouble. - In The Miserable Mill, when a worker gets his leg
mangled, his fellow workers give him a coupon for
50 off at the Ahab Memorial Hospital in
Paltryville.
- From Lewis Carroll
- Why, sometimes Ive believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast. - The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterdaybut
never jam today. - Now here, you see, it takes all the running you
can do, to keep in the same place. If you want
to get somewhere else, you must run at least
twice as fast as that.
19Irony in Signs
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21SOCRATIC IRONY
- Socratic irony occurs when a person pretends to
be ignorant and willing to learn from another,
but then asks adroit questions that expose the
weaknesses in the other persons argument. - The name comes from the Greek philosopher (c.
470-399 B.C.) Socrates, who developed the
Socratic method of teaching through asking
questions designed to elicit answers from
inside his students. - Along with Aristotle and Plato, he is given
credit for laying the philosophical foundations
of Western culture.
22TRAGIC IRONY occurs in situations where there are
terrible consequences as in the Greek drama
Oedipus Rex, Shakespeares Hamlet and King Lear,
and maybe even Arthur Millers Death of a
Salesman.
- So why in a class on humor, should we look at
tragic irony? - One reason is that by recognizing tragic irony in
literature, we will be better able to recognize
it in real life and perhaps do something about
it. - Also by looking at tragically ironic events, we
can gain insights into the kind of dark humor
that became fashionable in the latter half of the
20th century.
23Joseph Hellers Catch-22 as an example of Dark
Humor
- The title of Hellers anti-war novel is so
intriguing that it is now in dictionaries as the
name for any tricky problem, especially one for
which the only solution is denied by a
circumstance inherent in the problem. - In the book, Yossarian would be excused from
flying bombing missions if he were declared
insane. However the fact that he is trying to
get out of flying bombing missions proves his
sanity. He therefore has to keep flying. - A second paradox is that the pilots can go home
after flying a number of missions, but the number
keeps getting larger.
24A Winter Irony
25Real-life Tragedies Growing Out of Paradoxical
Events
- Is this last paradox similar to what some of
todays soldiers feel about having their time
extended in Iraq or Afghanistan? - In July of 2012, news stories revealed that,
ironically, an average of one soldier per day was
committing suicide while serving in an
institution designed to prevent death.
26Real-Life Catch-22s illustrate the kind of irony
illustrated by many urban legends and
contemporary novels, films, and plays
- People who cant get a job until they have
experience and who cant get experience until
they have a job are in a Catch-22. - So are Authors who cant get their manuscripts
published until they have an agent but cant get
an agent until they have been published. - A newspaper story under the headline Texas in
Catch-22 told about a Texas State law forbidding
the execution of anyone insane. However, a
prisoner on death row refused to take the
medication that would keep him sane so the State
was left in limbo.
27Ironies in the Attempted Assassination of
President Ronald Reagan
- On a smaller scale, it was ironic that when John
Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan,
his shots went awry, but one bounced back from
the bullet-proof steel of the Presidents
limousine and entered Reagans body. This means
that in effect Reagan was shot by his own
Presidential limousine, which was designed to
protect him. - At the time of the shooting, Reagan was leaving
the Washington Hilton Hotel, which local
humorists now refer to as the Hinckley Hilton. - President Reagan gave his a stamp of approval
to joking about the assassination attempt when he
asked the doctors treating him if they were
Republicans. That he could make a joke while
on a stretcher being wheeled into emergency
surgery, relieved tensions around the world.
WHY? HOW?
28IRONY AND PARADOX FOR FUN
- ONLY IN AMERICA
- do banks leave vault doors open and then chain
the pens to the counters. - do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in
the driveway and put our useless junk in the
garage. - do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to
the back of the store to get their prescriptions
while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the
front counter.
29Explain the irony!
30MORE SITUATIONAL IRONIES
- DO YOU EVER WONDER...
- WHY the time of day with the slowest traffic is
called rush hour? - WHY they sterilize the needle for lethal
injections? - WHY if flying is so safe, airports are called
terminals? - WHY sheep dont shrink when it rains?
31Ironic statements are sometimes used as
conversational lubricantsa kind of anticipatory
apology.
- EXAMPLES
- Not to change the subject, but . . .
- Far be it from me to say, but . . .
- I dont mean to impose my opinion, but . . .
- Clearly . . . or It is well known that . . .
- Do speakers realize they are starting out by
saying just the opposite of what they intend? - Do you think the speakers appear humble or
tricky? - How do these examples differ from the
contradictory The King Is Dead! God Save the
King!
32 IRONY FOR PERSUASIONThis turn on the phrase
Will Work for Food was used as an attention
getter in a serious article.
- The author was protesting how in todays economy,
companies are increasingly asking students to do
work for free (sometimes paying tuition for the
privilege) that before the downturn they would
have been paid for.
33More IRONY FOR FUN. Search Irony on the
Internet, to find photos of such real-life
ironies as
- A rusted can of RUSTOLEUM paint.
- A SAFE DRIVING school with a car crashed through
the front window. - A WEIGHT WATCHERS office sharing a building with
a BASKIN ROBBINS ice cream shop. - A sign in the midst of a traffic jam reading LANE
CLOSED TO EASE CONGESTION. - A billboard from Pacific Bell reading PHONE OUT
OF SERVICE? GIVE US A CALL.
34ALANIS MORISSETTE Ironic Song with Lyrics
- http//www.youtube.com/watch?vNm-1xvWibt0
35Is this Visual Irony stand-up or sit-down
comedy?Actually, the nuns are sitting on stools
with interesting legs.
36On Searching for Answers
- Because it is so hard to give definitions and
clear-cut answers to all the possible questions
about paradox and irony, we will end with a few
more paradoxical statements made by famous
writers and thinkers. - When I grow up, I want to be a little boy. Joseph
Heller - Nowadays people know the price of everything and
the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde - There isnt any answer. There aint going to be
any answer. There never has been an answer.
Thats the answer. Gertrude Stein
37In conclusion, Ironies are everywhere!