The Three Types of Irony

The three types of irony

By: Zack Lethgo

There are three types of irony and I am going to explain each of them. Irony is used in everyday life in stories, and in movies. There are a lot of examples of irony that I will talk about in the paragraphs ahead so please join me in a learning adventure about irony.

The first type of irony is Verbal irony: (also called sarcasm) a writer makes a statement in which the actual meaning differs from the meaning that the words appear to express. Some example of this kind of irony would be I’m trying to imagine you with a personality, I work 40 hours a week to be this poor, Is it time for your medication or mine, and Well this day was a total waste of makeup.

The next type of irony is Situational irony: accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, such as the poetic justice of a TV weather presenter getting caught in a surprise rainstorm. Some examples of this irony would be A person who claims to be a vegan and avoids meat but will eat a slice of pepperoni pizza because they are hungry, A man who is a traffic cop gets his license suspended for unpaid parking tickets, An ambulance driver goes to a nighttime bike accident scene and runs over the accident victim because the victim has crawled to the center of the road with their bike.

The last type of irony is Dramatic irony: a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that a character in the story does not know. Examples of this irony would be As an audience member, you realize that if a character walks into an abandoned warehouse, chances are a killer is waiting... but because you are a member of the audience you cannot disclose the information to the character, In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Romeo finds Juliet in a drugged state and he thinks she is dead. He kills himself. When Juliet wakes up she finds Romeo dead and kills herself.

Today we learned that there are three different types of irony and that...