Situational irony is something we’ve all experienced: an unexpected outcome or an outcome that’s the opposite of the intention. We get to use it as a literary device in our writing, this time at the expense of our characters instead of ourselves.
Think about an event where the description alone elicits amusement. A police station is robbed. There’s a fire in the firehouse. A chef goes on a hunger strike. The CEO of a nonprofit gets rich. The inherent gap in the premise of the situation and the result is where a bit of wry humor comes in. In this article, I will look at how situational irony applies to both serious and comedic works, give an example, and offer you a Story Weapon to help connect your readers to your characters.
Situational irony is a specific form of irony that happens when outcomes sharply contradict expectations, adding depth, humor, or tension to a story. By letting the circumstances create the surprise rather than relying on a forced joke, you can reveal character truths, enrich conflict, and elevate both comedic and dramatic moments.
How does situational irony apply to your writing?
Situational irony plays a key role in both dramatic and comedic writing. If the situation itself has an ironic twist, the work your characters do in a scene is amplified.
Dramatic works
Say, for example, you have a dreadfully serious spy book with heavy stakes. The protagonist and the antagonist are at each other’s throats and it’s a grim tale altogether. Situational irony is a great way to relieve tension, and allow everyone to be a bit more human. Maybe, after all that secrecy, the antagonist’s location is leaked because someone delivered food to the wrong address. The levity doesn’t lower the stakes, but rather, it provides a respite for the audience or reader to become more deeply invested in the story.
You might be surprised at how much richer a dramatic scene becomes when irony is introduced; your characters can stay just as serious and your audience can experience some relief without losing connection to the story.
The opposite is also true.
“Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.”
– Agnes Repplier
Comedy
The biggest laughs come from the situation rather than the jokes. Sitcoms are popular for a reason. A joke is over in a moment, but a premise that is situationally ironic has a chance to build in meaning with the laughs piling on top of one another.
This is articulated beautifully by Roger Ebert in his review of Stanley Kubricks’ Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:
Dr. Strangelove’s humor is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But a man who doesn’t know he’s wearing a funny hat . . . ah, now you’ve got something.
Example of extended situational irony
Situational irony is such a rich tool that it can provide the backbone of a whole story, as it is used in the film American Psycho. There’s a lot to love about that movie: the offbeat humor, Christian Bale’s performance, the iconic Huey Lewis, and the News scene. That said, the story rests on the inherent irony in a character performing gruesome murders and getting absolutely no reaction from anyone about it.
It’s such a rich premise that Christian Bale gets to play the movie completely seriously and the result is deeply funny. The men stress over their business cards and are all somehow vice presidents at a company. They discuss banal things over dinner and argue over petty egos. Amidst it all, Christian Bale is trying so hard to be a crazy killer and no one seems to care.
In the hands of some writers, this premise would be a good fit for an SNL sketch or a comedic short story. The original book upon which the film is based, written by Bret Easton Ellis, uses the premise to delve into capitalism. In the hands of Mary Harron who directed the film version and co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner, the story becomes an opportunity to parody the modern male ego. The frustrations of the character, both in his murdering life and in his career, symbolize the impotence of men’s lower acquisitive nature. From the perspective of two women, we get to see both how that anger plays out and how oddly paltry it is.
By the end of the movie, after all the blood and tension, after Christian Bale is interrogated by the police, we come to find that no one died in the first place. The madness of the character becomes more clear and we see him as a wannabe Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment. This twist on the violent premise of the book delivers the final blow to the male ego: even the murders were just a fantasy of having agency in his life.
You can see how situational irony can be used to lighten the tension of a scene or provide the premise for an incredible commentary on an issue.
Your story weapon: Use irony to connect to your characters
By exploring the situational irony in your story you are likely going to discover the dilemma besetting your protagonist. And this dilemma is the source from which all conflict arises.
When exploring irony in a dramatic piece, remember that it’s a great way to inject humor into the drama as a means of connecting to the humanity of your characters. And when adding it to a comedic piece, think of it as a way to create humor without writing punchlines. The humor arises from the truth of the situation rather than manufacturing laughs by making characters speak in a way that doesn’t ring true. When you allow the situation to do the heavy lifting, you will discover that your focus lies more on seeking the truth than in trying to make the story entertaining, but ultimately shallow.
There’s a great deal of situational irony just in being alive. Bringing that wry twist of fate to the page might be just what you need to elevate your story.
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