A finely developed sense of irony is a wonderful tool for a writer. In this article, I will discuss different forms of irony, and offer some examples from contemporary film and fiction, and finally I’ll give you a Story Weapon to help you dramatize the irony in your own work.
Irony creates meaning through the gap between expectation and reality, and you can use it to add depth, humor, or sharp insight to your stories. By recognizing how irony naturally appears in life and distilling the ironic core of a narrative, you can craft storytelling that feels sharper, more human, and universally resonant.
Definition of irony
We hear the word irony all the time, though it’s sometimes used to mean sarcasm or just the unexpected. How do we define irony? However it shows up—whether its situational irony, verbal irony, or dramatic irony—it relies on a sense of incongruity. Something’s amiss, and the gap between reality and our expectation is where we find the humor. A doctor falls ill or a pastor gets drunk; the clown cries and a police officer is under arrest. The joke’s on us and being able to laugh at it is a sign that your irony-meter is fully functioning.
“A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.”
– Honore de Balzac
So how do we bring irony to the page? It starts by recognizing how irony shows up in our lives.
We can differentiate between ironic statements–or sarcasm—and the moments that we recognize irony around us. This is what most people call situational irony—the incongruity between events and the human intent behind them. When we tap into that feeling of irony, it’s like we’re sensing the cosmic sense of humor behind the whole play. Put better by Charlie Chaplin: “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”
Think of irony as something that draws a smile, but not necessarily a laugh. You don’t have to be cracking jokes or putting your characters into silly situations to prove an ironic bent to your writing. When we think about what laughter is or why we laugh, it usually has an element of surprise to it. We laugh without thinking about it. Irony has a wryness to it, and isn’t without pain.
Examples of irony in storytelling
One of the best uses of irony in film is in Jordan Peele’s Get Out. It’s a joy to watch a comedian use their skills in the horror genre. Because Peele’s so sensitive to comedic tropes and the darkness that can exist in comedy, he’s also able to recognize the humor in dark situations. Horrible things happen in the film, but the sense of irony pervading the story keeps our heads above water. In a comedy, the humor springs from the characters’ deadly serious response to absurd situations.
Part of the irony in Get Out, which is reflected in real life politics as well, is the fact that the characters responsible for doing horrible things to black men are outwardly staunch liberals. It’s another reason that casting the actor Bradley Whitford as one of the antagonists is such an inspired choice. At the time the public memory still connected him to his character in The West Wing. Now here he’s playing a liberal racist murderer; the irony is all right there.
Get Out is a case study in irony because it shows how a script can have a deeply funny angle without sacrificing the seriousness of characters. When characters break the fourth wall and wink at the audience with a clever quip, we lose some of the intensity of the piece. On the other hand, watching pure brutality or horror is unpalatable to most audiences (though everything has a niche somewhere). By balancing the tone of the script with those little ironies throughout, Peele’s able to keep us afloat as we watch without sacrificing any of its darkness.
Another great example of irony is the works of P.G. Wodehouse, whose tongue was perpetually in his cheek. Nearly every line in his books has some ironic bent; irony central to the British wit. Here are a few examples:
- “Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.”
- “The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”
- “A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.’ He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”
- “It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.”
Your story weapon: How to introduce irony
There are lots of ways to throw irony into the mix in your writing. You might imbue your narrator with a wry perspective, or perhaps your story has a sense of cosmic irony that allows us to see the ridiculousness of some of our deeply held values.
Here’s a quick exercise.
Take the story you are currently working on and see if you can distill the story to a single sentence. In filmmaking, this is a logline. If it’s done well, we can see the entire story. This exercise is just as effective for fiction and memoir as it is for screenwriting. It forces you to clarify what your story is about by uncovering the irony at the heart of your story.
Example:
JAWS: A Sheriff must stand up to the City Fathers to protect a resort town from a killer shark on the Fourth of July.
Someone once said, “This work is far too important to take seriously.” By discovering the irony at the heart of your story, you will move in the direction of discovering something about our collective humanity that makes your story universally relatable.
Ready to sharpen your storytelling and harness the power of irony in your own work? Join one of my workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day.
