The Effective Use Of Irony In Greek Theatre

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Aaron gates
Irony
The word irony is derived from the Greek word Eironiea, which means feigned ignorance or dissembling. Although irony has had many uses throughout time originally it was a comedic effect used for mockery in Greek theater. Irony is a very misunderstood term it is because of this that many people use it in a distorted or incorrect way. In the modern era, irony is commonly used to describe negative of unfortunate events. It is uniquely fascinating how irony’s use has completely changed after surviving the death of its original language and its slow reintroduction over the last 2000 years. The connotative meaning behind irony is quite varied, as stated before some people believe irony is a term that is used to represent any coincident that has a negative outcome. For example, if someone were to say that the day they got stuck in traffic was the only day that year that they were already late for …show more content…

The glossary of literary terms defines irony as “a statement in which the meaning that the speaker employs is sharply different from the meaning that is verbally expressed”. These two definitions have one thing in common, the idea that irony only represents a scenario in which the outcome is the complete opposite of the expected one. This means that only a situation with an outcome that is already expected can have an ironic outcome. A good example of this is “an ambulance driver speeds to the scene of a road accident. The victim isn't badly hurt until the ambulance driver whips around a corner and runs over the victim's legs, not realizing she'd crawled to the center of the road.” The outcome of this situation is both a comedic and unexpected in nature, two things that are necessary for something to be truly

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