the definition of irony
disclaimer: i dont know if any of this is actually true, these are just words i thought of
if sarcasm is saying what you don’t mean, then irony might be defined as not saying what you do mean.
dramatic irony is often defined as a situation in fiction wherein the audience has knowledge that a character(s) does not. for example, a character might say, “today is a great day, nothing will go wrong today,” while the audience might know of a velociraptor off-screen that is about to eat them. while it is true that in this situation the audience is aware of a velociraptor that the character in question is not, it is better to think of irony as i defined it in the first paragraph: that the author is not saying what they do mean. to convey the scene’s full meaning, the line might literally be rendered, “today is a great day, nothing will go wrong today (except that i am about to be eaten by a velociraptor).”
in a recent episode of 30 rock, liz lemon noted the irony of a situation in which she was locked in a closet by her gay nephew who she had recently outed. she then asked, “is that irony?” to which he replied, “not really.” the common interpretation of irony is as an unfortunate coincidence (see: that one alanis morisette song). however it’s easy to see how this comes about as these sorts of situations in fiction are often ironic because the author intends to convey meaning through unfortunate coincidence. perhaps if liz had been outing her gay nephew while she was locked in the closet, while simultaneously concealing or being oblivious to her own homosexuality, it might have been a more concrete example of irony.
there might also be a sense in which the title of this post is ironic, though it creates conflict. it is possible, or even likely, that when reading a blog post titled “the definition of irony”, one might expect a story about an ironic personal anecdote, rather than a meditation on the literal definition of irony. in this case, i said exactly what i meant, which was contrary to what was expected – reverse irony?
there is also the sense in which this entire post has been an ironic f u bro to henry whom i told i would be writing more stream of consciousness posts and that this sort of bullshit is the result
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