Short Stories
Irony, satire, parody, humor and epigrams are deeply connected by having one main thing in common: they are usually meant to hurt the intellectual self of someone. We use it in our everyday’s life to make fun of people, or simply because someone is annoying and we would like them to stop, without being “too” rude.
Irony can be defined as a statement different from what appears to be true. It is an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (Meyer, 286-287). In a lot of cases, irony is usually used to raise the reader's interest by making the story or poem more unpredictable. In the poem “Suburban” by John Ciardi, the author approaches the reader with humor and irony. When Mrs. Friar phones Mr. Ciardi, saying: “The fact is your dog has just deposited – forgive me – a large repulsive object in my petunias,” can be interpreted as irony, because of the need of all living beings to eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste from our bodies, but the way she was saying it, sounds almost like she has no need to defecation. Mr. Ciardi does not respond the way he would like to out of politeness. He doesn’t even think it was his dog who did it, because his dog is out of town with his son, but yet, he agrees to pick it. There is the irony, again, he does the opposite of what a reader would expect him to do, the opposite of even what he wants to say or do. We could define this poem as a situational irony, which is a situation where there is a contradiction between what is expected to happen and what actually occurs, which is usually connected to a negative view of life. In other words, it is an outcome very different from what was originally expected. As explained in “The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature,” situational irony creates a distinction between realities in order to bring the reader closer to the central meaning of the story or poem. That is a different approach to poetry, meant for people that think poetry as a very boring
Irony can be defined as a statement different from what appears to be true. It is an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens (Meyer, 286-287). In a lot of cases, irony is usually used to raise the reader's interest by making the story or poem more unpredictable. In the poem “Suburban” by John Ciardi, the author approaches the reader with humor and irony. When Mrs. Friar phones Mr. Ciardi, saying: “The fact is your dog has just deposited – forgive me – a large repulsive object in my petunias,” can be interpreted as irony, because of the need of all living beings to eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste from our bodies, but the way she was saying it, sounds almost like she has no need to defecation. Mr. Ciardi does not respond the way he would like to out of politeness. He doesn’t even think it was his dog who did it, because his dog is out of town with his son, but yet, he agrees to pick it. There is the irony, again, he does the opposite of what a reader would expect him to do, the opposite of even what he wants to say or do. We could define this poem as a situational irony, which is a situation where there is a contradiction between what is expected to happen and what actually occurs, which is usually connected to a negative view of life. In other words, it is an outcome very different from what was originally expected. As explained in “The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature,” situational irony creates a distinction between realities in order to bring the reader closer to the central meaning of the story or poem. That is a different approach to poetry, meant for people that think poetry as a very boring
Bibliography: "Parody." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Sept. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>. "Humor." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Sept. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>. "Irony." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Sept. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>. "Drama." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Sept. 2010. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>.