Irony

1. Irony

2. Irony –the difference between the way something appears and what is actually true, or what one expects to happen and what actually happens.

3. Verbal Irony: when a speaker means something totally different than what he or she is saying (sarcasm)

4. Verbal Irony in Animal Farm Ex: The cat “was telling [the birds] that all animals were now comrades and that any sparrow who chose could come and perch on her paw…” What does she really mean?

5. Situational Irony: A contradiction between what a character expects to happen and what actually happens. Ex: A man wins the lottery and expects to have a perfect life. Instead, everyone he has ever known asks him for money and his life is worse than before.

6. Situational Irony in Animal Farm Napoleon “announced that from now on the Sunday-morning meetings would come to an end…In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself.” • What did the animals expect to happen when they rebelled against Mr. Jones? • What actually happened?

7. Dramatic Irony—the reader knows something that the characters do not, giving words and actions additional meaning. Ex: At the end of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo kills himself because he thinks that Juliet is dead, but the reader knows that she is really alive.

8. Dramatic Irony in Animal Farm • Because the animals are so naïve, we understand a lot more than they do about what is happening on the farm. • Our knowledge of the historical background of the novel also gives us a greater understanding of the events in the story. Ex: “You did not suppose, surely, that there was ever a ruling against beds…The rule was against sheets, which are a human invention. We have removed the sheets from the farm house beds, and sleep between blankets.” • What do we know that the animals don’t know (or can’t remember)? What are the real motivations of the pigs?