Identifying irony (ans)
Can you identify the type of irony in the following situations?
In a scary movie when the audience knows that a killer is in the house, but the owners in the house don’t know it. (dramatic irony)
At a restaurant there is a fly floating in a customer’s soup and the customer says, “Mmmmm. Insect soup, my favorite!” (verbal irony)
When watching a talk show, the audience knows why a person has been brought on the show. However, the person sitting in the chair does not know that he is going to be reunited with a former lover. (dramatic irony)
You stay up all night studying for a test. When you go to class, you discover the test is not until the next day. (situational irony)
You are arguing with your mother, who reprimands you for being “smart.” Your reply is sarcastic, “If you think I am smart, then why won’t you let me make some smart decisions?” (verbal irony)
Your boyfriend shows up in ripped jeans and a stained t-shirt. With a smirk, you say, “Oh! I see you dressed up for our date. We must be going to a nice restaurant!” (verbal irony – sarcastic comment)
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, they were both eaten by a killer whale. (situational irony – they spent so much to save the animals only to be eaten almost instantly by a killer whale)
A boy and his friends are talking trash about the principal, and the principal is standing right around the corner listening. (situational irony – they both think the principal is not listening when they were talking trash about the principal when in fact the principal is listening to the trash about himself)
Terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn’t pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with “return with sender” stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. (situational irony – he sends the letter to harm others but instead the letter comes back to harm him)
Two animal rights activists were protecting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protestors to death. (situational irony – the two animal rights activists were supposed to protect the pigs from being slaughtered but instead they were trampled on by the pigs they were supposed to protect )