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Irony has three types: verbal, dramatic, and situational. Verbal irony involves saying the opposite of what is meant, while dramatic irony reveals information to the audience that a character is unaware of. Situational irony occurs when expectations are contradicted. Irony is used in literature and pop culture, such as in Batman where the hero inadvertently creates his own enemy.
The term irony comes from a Greek word meaning “one who dissembles”. There are three major types: verbal, dramatic, and situational. Each signals a difference between appearance and reality.
Verbal irony involves figures of speech, where what is said is not what is meant. There are several types:
Sarcasm: In sarcasm, the speaker means the opposite of what is being said. Suppose someone walks out the door in the morning, hoping for sunshine, and finding sleet and freezing rain, exclaims, “What a beautiful day!” This is sarcasm, and irony results because the opposite of what is literally said is what is actually meant. The contempt in this particular type of sarcasm is for the event being described: it is not a personal criticism – the speaker is disgusted by the bad weather. Equivocation: In the equivocation, the speaker says something that is true when understood correctly, but otherwise at the same time, it does everything possible to prevent it from being misunderstood. This allows a speaker to tell the truth but avoid revealing certain matters. For example, in Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3, after hearing Lennox refer to the strange and prophetic events of the previous night, Macbeth replies “It was a difficult night.” It may appear that he is simply stating Lennox’s remarks, but after watching the discussions of Duncan’s murder, the audience knows there is another meaning to Macbeth’s statement that Lennox cannot understand.
In dramatic irony, the author, narrator, or playwright reveals to the reader or audience information about a character’s situation that the character is unaware of. Omens and premonitions are two ways an author or playwright can achieve this; another way is to allow the reader or audience to witness scenes or situations that a character does not have access to. For example, when audiences first see Macbeth in Act 1, scene 3 of the play that bears his name, and the witches acclaim him as the Thane of Cawdor, they know – but he doesn’t – that the Thane of Cawdor was sentenced to death and his title was designated for Macbeth by King Duncan. For the audience, this happened in Act 1, scene 2, but Macbeth gets the news later, after the prophecy, driving a gap between what the audience knows and what he knows.
Situational irony occurs when well-founded expectations – both of a character and of the audience – appear to be safe but do not manifest; this is another way that appearance and reality can end up contradicting each other. Again, Macbeth’s path to retaining the throne and overthrowing Malcolm’s claim seems certain to him, since “no woman born will harm Macbeth”, and is safe until “Birham Wood has come at Dunsinane” – two assurances that give him a good certainty of success. However, both of these promises turn out to be misunderstandings and his success is by no means assured. In the play’s final scenes, Macbeth’s expectations are turned upside down and he is killed.
While irony has an established presence in literature and the fine arts, it is also a staple of many forms of pop culture. An outstanding example of this is superhero fiction, both in comics and movies, which repeatedly use it to twist the plot, creating immersive and dramatic situations. The 1989 film Batman serves as an example in pop culture. In this film, Bruce Waynes choice to become a crime fighter is a direct result of the murder of his parents when he was young. The killer, a two-bit thug at the time, would later be shoved into a vat of acid by Batman during a chemical plant heist. After plastic surgery and recovery from acid burns, the two-bit thug reinvents himself as one of Batman’s greatest adversaries, the Joker. The irony that each of these two characters is actually responsible for creating their own enemy leads to dark and engaging storylines.
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