All 24 Uses of
irony
in
Sophie's Choice
- But truly there is some irony in the fact that the one book that I rejected and—at least to my knowledge—also later found a publisher was a work which did not languish unknown and unread.
p. 10.7irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
- ...born in 1848, my own grandmother at the age of thirteen possessed two small Negro handmaidens only a little younger than herself, regarding them as beloved chattel all through the years of the Civil War, despite Abraham Lincoln and the articles of emancipation. I say "beloved" with no irony because I'm certain that she did very much love them, and...
p. 29.1 *irony = saying one thing while meaning something else
- I deem it an irony that your education should have been received at an institution founded upon the ill-gotten lucre of the Dukes, though that's hardly a fault of yours.
p. 31.6irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
- She was not medically unsophisticated, so Sophie was aware of the irony involved in her seeking the ministrations of a chiropractor, but such strictures involving her employer she had of necessity abandoned when she took the desperately needed job in the first place.
p. 102.6irony = when what happens is very different than what might be expected
- A touch of hysteria almost perfectly pitched between grief and hilarity seized her as she pondered the irony of dying of such an insidious and inexplicable disease after all the other sicknesses she had survived and after all, in so many countless ways, she had seen and known and endured.
p. 108.7
- I am a little mortified to discover that almost none of the above was apparently written with the faintest trace of irony...
p. 140.0irony = saying one thing while meaning the opposite
- As Leslie continues I can only reflect despairingly on the obvious irony: that if through those frigid little harpies in Virginia I had been betrayed chiefly by Jesus, I have been just as cruelly swindled at Leslie's hands by the egregious Doktor Freud.
p. 193.5irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
- Great irony in this, of course: "The Man" who had gained the loathing of "right-thinking" people everywhere, including the South, by his straightforward promiscuous public use of words like "nigger,"
p. 205.2
- The petty tyrant from the piney woods who had called Mayor La Guardia of New York a "dago" and who had addressed a Jewish congressman as "Dear Kike" suffering a ripe carcinoma which would soon still that scurrilous jaw and evil tongue—it was all too much, and the Post laid on the irony with a dumptruck.
p. 205.4
- "What is the word Pironie in English?"
"Irony?" I said.
"Yes, such an irony that a man like that, a man like my father, risk his life for Jews and die, and the Jew-killers live, so many of them, right now."p. 215.1
- Yes, such an irony that a man like that, a man like my father, risk his life for Jews and die, and the Jew-killers live, so many of them, right now.
p. 215.1 *
- I'd say that's less an irony, Sophie, than the way of the world,
p. 215.2
- "Too bad," he said, again in tones of leaden irony, "too bad, my friends, that our celebration cannot continue in the vein of exalted homage I had intended for this evening."
p. 219.4irony = saying something in a context that demonstrates it to be false
- He had a spacious yet discriminative style, flecked with sparks of irony.
p. 263.3irony = saying one thing while meaning something else
- And it becomes all the more ironic since it is plain that the Germans had unwittingly imprisoned and doomed a man whom later they might have considered a major prophet—
p. 273.4ironic = when what happens is very different than what might be expected
- On another day she might not even have been caught. The irony of this smote her over and over while she waited in an almost totally dark detention cell with a dozen other Warsovians of both sexes, all strangers.
p. 399.2irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
- But his obsession must have blinded him to many things, and it is an irony that—even if the Poles and other Slavs were not next on the list of people to be annihilated—he should have failed to foresee how such sublime hatred could only gather into its destroying core, like metal splinters sucked toward some almighty magnet, countless thousands of victims who did not wear the yellow badge.
p. 411.9
- There comes a point in a narrative like this one when a certain injection of irony seems inappropriate, perhaps even "counterindicated"—despite the underlying impulse toward it—because of the manner in which irony tends so easily toward leadenness, thus taxing the reader's patience along with his or her credulity.
p. 451.2irony = when things are together that seem like they don't belong together
- There comes a point in a narrative like this one when a certain injection of irony seems inappropriate, perhaps even "counterindicated"—despite the underlying impulse toward it—because of the manner in which irony tends so easily toward leadenness, thus taxing the reader's patience along with his or her credulity.
p. 451.3
- But since Sophie was my faithful witness, supplying the irony herself as a kind of coda to testimony I had no reason to doubt, I must set her final observation down, adding only the comment that these words of hers were delivered in that wobbly, tone of blurred, burned-out, exhausted emotional pandemonium—part hilarity, part profoundest grief—which I had never heard before in Sophie, and only rarely before in anyone, and which plainly signaled the onset of hysteria.
p. 451.3
- But even this—well, even this irony didn't seem to impress her.
p. 511.7irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
- But among other ironies, she realized, was this one: she had not been judged guilty of anything, merely interrogated and forgotten.
p. 523.7ironies = things that are very different than what might be expected
- So, checking the dwindling resources of my wallet (ironically, I was still subsisting on Nathan's gift), I decamped from the hotel in a vague sweat of anti-Semitism, trudged the many blocks...
p. 549.7ironically = when what happens is very different than what might be expected
- No one had bothered to consult about the music, and this was both an irony and a shame.
p. 556.4irony = when what happened was very different than what might have been expected
Definitions:
-
(1)
(irony as in: situational irony) when what happens is very different than what might be expected; or when things are together that seem like they don't belong together -- especially when amusing or an entertaining coincidenceThis is sometimes referred to as "situational irony." The term is especially appropriate when actions have consequences opposite to those intended.
Situational irony can be poignant, humorous, or unusual in juxtaposition. It can be subtle. For example, a novel can bring to mind a famous work of literature that leads the reader expect a certain pattern. Then the writer can turn the pattern on its head.
The expression ironic smile, generally references someone who is smiling (or often smiles) at situational irony.
All forms of irony involve the perception that things are not what they might seem. -
(2)
(irony as in: verbal irony) saying one thing, while meaning the opposite or something else -- usually as humor or sarcasm
(With this type of irony, it's not uncommon for the words to say one thing while the tone-of-voice and/or context says another.)This is sometimes referred to as "verbal irony."
All forms of irony involve the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they might seem. -
(3)
(irony as in: dramatic irony) when the meaning of a situation is understood by one person, but not by another -- especially when a reader or audience knows what characters of a story do not (such as in the play, Romeo and Juliet)A closely associated, but less common, concept is called Socratic irony. This is the situation where a questioner acts as though they lack understanding of something and question someone else to expose inconsistencies in logic. This is named after the Socratic method of teaching.
All forms of irony involve the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they seem. -
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Less commonly, Socratic irony is where someone pretends ignorance to get another to think through a problem.
Less commonly still, some also refer to romantic irony as when an author reminds the audience that the fictional words is the author's creation and will play out as the author desires.