Irony and Ambiguity

1. Ms. Stout English I/ Honors English 1 Chapter 5 Irony and Ambiguity

2. IRONY • Defined: not what we expect • Sometimes comic • We enjoy irony when we recognize the truth in it.—that life rarely fulfills our expectations and often astounds us. • 3 types: verbal, situational, dramatic • Examples: The fire house burnt to the ground. • The “unsinkable” ship (Titanic) sinks.

3. VERBAL IRONY • Defined: When someone says one thing, but means the opposite (like sarcasm) • Ex: When something rotten happens and you respond with, “Oh, great!” or “Lucky me!” • Ex: “You are so coordinated,” after a person trips. • Ex: When a mother sees her children playing video games instead of doing their homework, she may tackle the situation saying, "Once you're done with your very important work there, let's take some time out for recreation in the form of some chemistry problems."

4. SITUATIONAL IRONY • Defined: when the opposite of what we expect to happen, happens • Ex: If someone won the lottery, and died the next day. • Ex: When a mayor is elected based on his platform of “honesty” and then caught spending money that was supposed to be used for something else.

5. DRAMATIC IRONY • Defined: when the audience knows something that characters/others don’t know; or when a character says something of greater significance than he/she knows • Ex: Lisa has planned a surprise party for Ted and everyone is waiting in his dark living room. As Ted is driving home, he says to himself, “I can’t wait to have a nice, quiet evening.” • Ex: When Juliet says, “I’ll die if I can’t be with Romeo.” Little does she actually know, she is going to die because she can’t be with Romeo.

6. AMBIGUITY • Defined: offers us several conflicting consequences or meanings—or leaves us to sort them out • We tend to have ambiguous feelings about many of our experiences • Megan is a lovely girl, but she is so irresponsible. • I’m a reasonably honest person, but I never did return Rudy’s watch.

7. HOW IS AMBIGUITY CREATED BY AN AUTHOR? • Contradiction: two things that don’t match up • Seeing your personal trainer order a Big Mac, extra large fries, and a milkshake from McDonalds. • Subtleties: not the obvious • Think of a commercial that shows a surfer or snowboarder out on his board, and in the next scene he is enjoying a certain soft drink. The ad doesn’t say it explicitly, but it implies that adventurous, cool people drink that soft drink.

8. WHY DO AUTHOR’S USE IRONY AND AMBIGUITY? • Keep you interested • Emphasize a certain point • Create tension • Motivation for you to: keep reading, think DEEPER (than surface meaning of words), and make your own conclusions

9. PRACTICE • Look at the picture at the bottom of page 285 in your book. What is IRONIC about this picture?

10. What is the IRONY here?

11. What is the IRONY here?

12. What is the IRONY here?

13. What is the IRONY here?

14. How is this picture AMBIGUOUS?

15. PRACTICE • Find something IRONIC, AMBIGUOUS, or CONTRADICTORY from your favorite movie or story. • Set up the scene, explain why it is ironic, ambiguous, or contradictory, and then try to determine why the author might have chosen to do it. • One very short example that you may NOT use  “The Most Dangerous Game” the title alone is ambiguous because we don’t know if it is referring to a game you play, or game that you hunt…ironically, it is both.