Irony

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Irony

Irony is the use of words to describe the opposite of its literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. I was walking down the school hallway with my friend Sheilyn and I see her trip over her ugg boots. I laughed so hard that when I turned around, I also tripped and fell over. That is an ironic moment that happens a lot in my life.

Edwin Arlington Robinson's Richard Cory, describes how Ricard Cory was a man of respect and wealth. He was considered higher then a king to the towns people. "In fine we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place." It seemed as if he had everything and everyone envied him, but looks can be deceiving. One calm summer night, Richard Cory went and put a bullet through his head. As the poem explains how even if we are well educated and wealthy, it still can not bring happiness.

In this picture it has a sign saying "No Seagulls" yet there is a seagull on top of that very sign. A seagull can not read signs so it does not care where it stops to rest. Yet whoever put the sign thinks that it is going to stop every seagull from landing.

Roald Dahl's, Lamb of the Slaughter, is a good example of irony. Mary Maloney is at home awaiting her husband to come home. With all the love she has in her heart she wants to prepare him a lamb but he surprises her with the news that he is leaving her. With that very same lamb she hits him in the head and kills him. The irony of the story is that when the detectives appear at her home to investigate the crime scene, she convinces them to eat the lamb in which she prepare. Still wondering where the weapon could be hiding, one of the detectives state "it's probably right under our very noses," and indeed it was.

Gardiner Harris' The House that Slaves Built, is another example of irony. The White House was built back in 1801 by black slaves. In the 19th century, blacks were not allowed in the White house. It was considered taboo. Fast forwarding time more than 200 years our first African American president, Barack Obama, is now living there.

All in all, irony is a part of our everyday life. As seen in the poem Richard Cory and Lamb of the Slaughter, the presentation at the beginning of each piece was happy yet at the end, it was the opposite. Both stories ended in death. Not necessarily saying that irony is about death, but it contradicts the story from how it was presented at first.