Humor and IronyChapter Seven

« Serious »• Literary and artistic works may be

« serious » but not necessarily solemn• Humor combined with significant

insight into human nature– Greek and Roman plays– Shakespeare’s humor– Chaucer– Austen– Dickens– Twain– O’Connor

Irony vs. Sarcasm• Sarcasm – language a person uses to belittle

another• Irony – technique used to convey truth about

human experience by exposing some incongruity of a character’s behavior or society’s traditions

Verbal Irony• Figure of speech in which the speaker

says the opposite of what he/she intends to say– “You’re wasting away before my very eyes.”

(spoken to overweight Tub in “Hunters in the Snow”; uses irony and sarcasm to ridicule Tub)

– “Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish [we] were the only ones just right” (narrator in “The Lesson”; irony establishes distance between adult narrator and her youthful self who thought she knew everything—not sarcasm)

Dramatic Irony

• Contrast between what a character says and what the reader knows to be true– Loretta Bird says of Mrs. Peebles, “She wouldn’t find time

to lay down in the middle of the day, if she had seven kids like I got” is ironic because Loretta herself often “finds time” to sit gossiping at the Peebles farm instead of staying home with her children (“How I Met My Husband”)

Situational Irony• Discrepancy between appearance and reality,

expectation and fulfillment, or what is and what would seem appropriate– Mr. Das’s guidebook to India appears to have been

published abroad; Indian Mr. Kapasi watches American show Dallas, but American Tina has never heard of it (“Interpreter of Maladies”)

– Rainsford, “the celebrated hunter” becomes the hunted (“The Most Dangerous Game”)

Irony• Often a means for compression – suggests

complex meanings without stating them– Ironic contrast between appearances and reality

generates a complex set of meanings– Three hunting buddies are not “friends” in any

meaningful sense of the word; their cruel, self-absorbed behaviors provide contrast (“Hunters in the Snow”)

Importance of Irony

• Truth must be produced indirectly– A flat statement (an essay, a plot summary) can

have no emotional impact on readers– Readers must feel the truth, not

simply understand it intellectually– If a story has no emotional impact,

it has failed as a work of art

“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

Listen to Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic.” Provide examples of irony from the song.

"Ironic" with lyrics

Sentimentality

• Contrived or excessive emotion– Stories try to elicit easy or unearned emotional responses– Uncle Tom’s Cabin tries to wring tears from the reader over

the plight of African-American slaves– In contrast, Beloved uses carefully restrained, artful

language and frequently biting irony in its castigation of slavery

– Genuine emotion if life is treated faithfully and perceptively; sentimental narrative oversimplifies and exaggerates emotion

Recognizing Sentimentality1. Editorializing: commenting on the story and

thus instructing readers how to feel2. Poeticizing: overwriting; using immoderately

heightened and distended language to accomplish efforts

Recognizing Sentimentality

3. Excessive Detailing: being highly selective in details that all point one way—toward producing emotion rather than conveying truth– Little child who dies is always uncomplaining and cheerful

under adversity, never naughty or ungrateful; may be an orphan or the only child of a mother who loves him dearly; may be lame, hungry, and in possession of one toy, from which he cannot be parted

– Villain may be all villain with a cruel laugh and sharp whip, though he may reform at the end (sentimentalists believe in the heart of gold beneath rough exterior)

Recognizing Sentimentality4. Relying on Stock Response: emotion has its

source outside of facts established by the story– Some situations/objects produce an almost

automatic response (babies, mothers, grandmothers, young love, patriotism, worship, etc.)

– Don’t go to trouble of picturing the situation in realistic and convincing detail

Recognizing Sentimentality

5. Presenting “Sweet” Picture of Life: relying on stock themes– Every cloud has a silver lining (If the little child dies, he

goes to heaven or makes some life better by his death.)– Virtue is triumphant (The villain is defeated; true love is

rewarded.)– Specializes in “sad but sweet”

Sentimentality

The Notebook

Human Experience• “The writers we value most are

able to look at human experience in a clear-eyed, honest way and to employ literary techniques such as humor and irony as a way to enhance, not reduce, the emotional impact of their stories.”

• “A complex human reality requires a complex narrative technique, and in this way the best storytellers always have attempted to portray the whole of human experience—from its most tragic misery to its most absurd folly—in a single, integrated artistic vision.”