In keeping with the spirit of Short Story Boot Camp, today's Warm-Up will focus on irony. In Chapter 26 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster alludes to the fact that there are different types of irony. Answer the following questions about the three types and Foster's opinion.
1. What is verbal irony?
2. What is dramatic irony?
3. What is situational irony?
4. Why do you think that Foster chooses not to distinguish between the three types? What is the purpose of this ambiguity?
Verbal Irony: when a speaker's literal words (and their surface meaning) are at odds with his or her actual meaning (i.e. sarcasm)
Dramatic Irony: when a character naively speaks what he/she believes to be the truth, and/or act on what he/she believes to be the truth, while the audience knows that he/she has got it all wrong
Situational Irony: a difference between the expection of what is going to happen and the acutal events, or a difference between a character's intention and the actual results
Other types of irony:
Cosmic Irony: divine forces conspire against human beings to destroy them
Structural Irony: the structure of the work is ironic--i.e. when the first person narrator is made to say things against his or her true beliefs
1. What is verbal irony?
2. What is dramatic irony?
3. What is situational irony?
4. Why do you think that Foster chooses not to distinguish between the three types? What is the purpose of this ambiguity?
Verbal Irony: when a speaker's literal words (and their surface meaning) are at odds with his or her actual meaning (i.e. sarcasm)
Dramatic Irony: when a character naively speaks what he/she believes to be the truth, and/or act on what he/she believes to be the truth, while the audience knows that he/she has got it all wrong
Situational Irony: a difference between the expection of what is going to happen and the acutal events, or a difference between a character's intention and the actual results
Other types of irony:
Cosmic Irony: divine forces conspire against human beings to destroy them
Structural Irony: the structure of the work is ironic--i.e. when the first person narrator is made to say things against his or her true beliefs
RSS Feed