Writing Advice:
Irony: It’s Not Just Heavy Metal

To paraphrase Sammy Hagar, it’s your one-way ticket to midnight, calling heavy metal “noise.” Particularly in this context where, metaphorically speaking, I have paired heavy metal and irony together in the same basket. Might feel like a stretch ... because it is. But I love that song and how else could I work it in?

So what is irony? A dry, technical definition is the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning. Another definition using more beautiful language is incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result. A simple definition is that irony occurs when a person says something or does something that departs from what he or she (or we) expect that person to say or do. Author George Saunders said, “Irony is just honesty with the volume cranked up.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jean Stafford said, “Irony, I feel, is a very high form of morality.”

As a literary technique, irony is nothing new. It was invented for Greek tragedy. In that instance, the real significance of a character’s words or actions were clear to the audience although unknown to the character. Plato (428–347 BCE) used irony in the form of Socratic irony in The Republic, Meno, and Euthyphro, where he described Socrates pretending to be ignorant to stimulate deeper thinking.

As a literary device, irony is a super power. Writers can use irony to create conflict. It is a great way to illustrate the differences between expectation and reality. It can inject comedy or tragedy, increase tension, or create a plot twist. If it’s done well, it will shock the reader. Situational irony is a perfect tool for setting up readers’ expectations, then shocking them with the unexpected.

Irony is real. Understanding irony involves increased activity in several brain regions, especially the frontal lobe, including the medial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with complex cognitive processes.

So it should be pretty clear: irony is not just heavy metal.

Types of Irony

Not surprisingly, nailing down the “main” types of irony is about as easy as figuring out Bob Dylan song lyrics by sound alone. You could do an Internet search right now and get different answers for how many “main” types of irony there are. So I’m going to try a more broad approach.

According to The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, there are five main types of irony: situational, verbal, dramatic, cosmic, and romantic.

Situational
Situational irony is where there is no ironist (a person using irony). So, in a sentence, it would not be “he is being ironical”; instead, the sentence would read, “it is ironical that,” describing the situation, not a person.

Example. When I was 8 years old (give or take a year), my family went on a backpacking trip. It was early July. We packed long pants because we could not predict the presence of stinging nettles. However, the heaviest upper garment anyone packed was a long-sleeved flannel shirt. I say again: it was July. So we drove up as far as possible, put up the backpacking tents, ate dinner and slept in preparation for heading out the next morning. We woke up in the morning to two inches of snow. It was the latest snowfall in the year on record for the State of Utah. But we had already packed, bought dehydrated food and driven up in the mountains, so we still went backpacking. I wore all of my extra socks at once (on my hands and feet), all of my extra shirts because I did not have anything intended for snow, and tied one of my dad’s t-shirts around my head to keep my ears warm. That’s irony.

Verbal
Verbal irony is where the meaning of something as expressed by someone is sharply different from reality. It’s also important to point out that verbal irony is intentional.

Example. One of my favorite movies is Good Will Hunting. At the end, Sean (Robin Williams) says to Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) that he just got a flyer for the class reunion and that he would buy Lambeau a drink there. Lambeau says, “The drinks at those things are free.” Sean then has to explain his joke and says, “I know, I was being ironical.”

Dramatic
Dramatic irony provides the reader (or audience) with information of which characters are ignorant. As a result, the audience knows something the character(s) do not and can recognize that the character(s) is doing something counter-productive or misunderstanding the situation.

Example. You’re watching a horror-slasher film in a movie theater. The killer creeps into the barn in the dark. The protagonist and her boyfriend are giggling and kissing, looking for a place to slip away together. They spot the barn and, holding hands, hurry toward it. Because you know something they don’t, you are instantly worried about the characters. You want to yell a warning ... or maybe you actually do. (Eighty-two percent of U.S. adults will take action to put a stop to this unacceptable behavior.)

Shakespeare used dramatic irony in the prologue of Romeo & Juliet when he wrote that the two teenagers would be dead by the end of the play. As events play out, the audience knows they are racing toward that deadly cliff.

Cosmic
Cosmic irony is where the character(s) is always being thwarted by a higher power: fate, God, the universe, or other forces (whatever they may be) beyond human control. This is also known as “the irony of fate.”

Example. Oedipus Rex desperately tries to escape his prophesied fate of killing his father and marrying his mother. Through his actions, however, he unknowingly fulfills the prophecy exactly, demonstrating how the universe conspires against him, leading to a tragic outcome.

Romantic
Romantic irony is similar to cosmic irony, but differs in that it is the author who assumes the role of the cosmic force, because the very act of love leads to a devastating misunderstanding and loss. In English Romantic Irony, Anne K. Mellor wrote, “Romantic irony ... sees the world as fundamentally chaotic. No order, no far goal of time ... determines the progression of human or natural events.”

Example. Going back to Romeo & Juliet, Romeo believes Juliet is dead and kills himself, while the audience knows she is merely in a sleeping potion-induced coma. This creates a tragic disconnect between what the character thinks and what the audience knows to be true.

More On Verbal Irony

When overstating or understating a situation, verbal irony is in use.

Overstatement
If you found a quarter on the street, picked it up, and said, “Guess I’ll retire early,” you’re overstating, because a quarter is not enough to suddenly be able to retire.

Example. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck says, “It was a lovely day to go to a funeral” about a particularly unpleasant situation. He exaggerated the positive aspects to highlight the negative reality of the event.

Understatement
If you found a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills and said, “This should be enough for the weekend,” you’re understating. Obviously, that’s enough money to get through the weekend.

Example. In Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, King Arthur faces the Black Knight, severing his arms and legs. When the knight’s arm is cut off he says, “‘Tis but a scratch.” After losing all his limbs, he says, “All right. We’ll call it a draw.”

When using verbal irony, it can be a stable application or unstable.

Stable
Stable irony is when the speaker’s alternate meaning is clear to their audience. In other words, it’s nasty weather and someone says, “What a beautiful day we’re having.” You know they mean the opposite.

Example. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle tells Gaston, “I just don’t deserve you!” In reality, Gaston doesn’t deserve Belle.

Unstable
With unstable irony, the audience knows what the speaker is saying is untrue; however, they don’t have enough context to determine the speaker’s true meaning, often leading to an uncomfortable situation.

Example. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, Clifford Pyncheon describes his life as a “pleasant dream,” while imprisoned and haunted by his past. This leaves the reader wondering if he is truly accepting his fate or simply using a facade to cope.

Grades of Irony

D.C. Muecke wrote in The Compass of Irony that there are three grades of irony: overt, covert, and private. The grades of irony are distinguished “according to the degree to which the real meaning is concealed.”

Overt
Overt irony is where the true meaning (as opposed to the ironic meaning) is clearly apparent to both parties. What makes the expression ironic is how blatantly the contradiction is stated. Sarcasm may fall into the overt-irony bucket.

Example. In The Sixth Sense, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is treating a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) with a mysterious illness. The overt irony is that he is unaware that he has been dead the whole time and is the cause of the boy’s issues.

Covert
Covert irony occurs when a situation or character’s dialogue appears straightforward on the surface but holds a deeper, ironic meaning that the audience is meant to understand subtly or through the character’s actions or the context of the scene.

Example. In The Dark Knight, when the Joker (Heath Ledger) says, “You can’t kill me, because I’m already dead,” it appears to be a simple threat. The covert irony is that he’s actually embracing his chaotic nature and lack of fear of death (which is key to his character).

Private
Private irony is just as it sounds, not meant to be perceived at all. The character is unaware of the full implications of his/her actions or situation, creating a layer of meaning only understood by the audience.

Example. In the movie, Fight Club, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), is actually a manifestation of the character’s own subconscious. It leads to a deeply ironic situation where he is fighting against himself without realizing it.

A Note About Sarcasm

Some believe that “sarcasm” and “verbal irony” are the same thing. This is incorrect. Put simply, sarcasm does not have to include irony, and irony does not have to include sarcasm. The line between sarcasm and verbal irony is drawn by many experts in that sarcasm is often used as a method of ridicule to express contempt. Sarcasm is used to mock or attack.

Psychologist Rod A. Martin wrote in The Psychology of Humour, that irony is where “the literal meaning is opposite to the intended” and sarcasm is “aggressive humor that pokes fun.”

Irony is Not Coincidence

Irony is often mistaken or misconstrued as luck or coincidence. Go back to my backpacking story. If it was just some day during the year, then that would just have been bad luck. That it happened during what should have been the hottest time of the year, it was ironic. While there was sweltering heat at home, it should have been sunny and pleasant up on the mountain. Three inches of snow on the first night was the opposite of that expectation.

So that’s just a little about irony, trying to take a long and winding road and straighten it out a little.

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