Thread: I

can't understand irony for the life of me!? I've searched all over Google and it's just not clicking in my head for some reason. I know there's different types of irony but I think I only understand one and that's verbal irony. So, is ALL sarcasm considered verbal irony?

I have to find irony in a poem called Tithonus. He wishes to be immortal because he falls in love with a goddess. He gets his wish of immortality but not immortal youth so at the end of the poem he wishes he could die. Is this ironic? That he wanted to live forever, but then wants to die?

If someone has a site or some way of helping me understand irony I'd appreciate it.

The piece you mention is ironic because, although he got something he wished for, it came with its own problems. Irony is usually a bit funny in this way. The best example of this type is the classic horror story "The monkey's paw", where a couple wish for money with their magic, 3-wish granting, monkey's paw. They get a large amount of money sure enough (AND HERE IS THE IRONY IN THE UNEXPECTED RESULT OF THEIR WISH) but only because their son is killed and they receive a compensation payment. It gets worse; irony upon irony. Why? Because, once the son has been buried for a couple of months, the mother uses her second wish and asks for him to be returned to her, alive. THE IRONIC TWIST is that, while he does come back, his body has been rotting for two months and he's not looking or smelling too good. And the third wish is made by the father who, as the son knocks (bonily and smellily) on the front door, wishes that everything could be how it was before the first wish was made. Which means that they are back at square one BUT, IRONICALLY, now having wasted the three wishes that could have turned their lives around.
Hope this helps you a little bit (although it would be ironic if you used this info and it was in fact all wrong and you got a low mark).

irony is basically something happens or something is said which is the complete opoosite of what is true or expected.
so if there is a man whose wife is dying of a disease, and it turns out that she survives the disease and he died instead, that's irony. Because you'd expect the woman to die.
Yes, it's ironic that he dreamed of immortality and when he got it he wanted to die, because you would expect that once he got his dream he would be happy. but actually when it comes true he doesn't want it.

Dramatic irony is a form of irony- when the audience/reader knows something that the characters don't. For example at the beginning of romeo and juliet we are told that romeo and juliet die, but of course the characters don't know that the two will both die at the end.

irony is basically something happens or something is said which is the complete opoosite of what is true or expected.
so if there is a man whose wife is dying of a disease, and it turns out that she survives the disease and he died instead, that's irony. Because you'd expect the woman to die.
Yes, it's ironic that he dreamed of immortality and when he got it he wanted to die, because you would expect that once he got his dream he would be happy. but actually when it comes true he doesn't want it.

Dramatic irony is a form of irony- when the audience/reader knows something that the characters don't. For example at the beginning of romeo and juliet we are told that romeo and juliet die, but of course the characters don't know that the two will both die at the end.