What Is The Use Of Irony In 'Giant Flying' By Dave Barry

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“GIANT FLYING CAT TERRIFIES STATES.” This is the beginning of an article done by the Sun, a “newspaper”. This is in “MUTANT FLEAS TERRORIZE MIDWEST”, by Dave Barry. “...every single word in the headline is true except for ‘GIANT’, ‘FLYING’, ‘TERRIFIES’, and ‘STATES’.” This set the general theme for the entire story. The story is a satire, and the author uses many types of humor to make fun of how media portrays things as well as people’s overreactions to them. The purpose of the humor used in this article is to make fun of how people overreact to modern-day media to make people laugh. The author uses satire, irony, hyperbole, and sarcasm to convey his sense of humor in this article.
One type of humor that Barry uses in his story is satire. …show more content…

One of the lines he has irony in is,“On one hand, I never have liked small dogs.” This was ironic because he is annoyed with his neighbors’ dogs.. This is ironic because if this was a case when giant fleas were attacking, you wouldn’t be very particular about who, or what, was being attacked. You would just want to stop the attacks. Another line that contains irony, “Of course, all of this will cost money, which fortunately is the very thing the government will continue to relieve you of in large amounts under the president’s revolutionary new tax plan.” This is a form of irony because in the beginning of the story, he says he doesn’t care what the president’s new tax plan will do to you. This is ironic because his giant flea story was, in a way, just a roundabout way of saying that the “revolutionary new tax plan” will just be a new way the government concocted to “relieve” you of your money. The author uses irony as a form of humor to deter the true meaning of his words until they get to a point in the story where is makes …show more content…

One of the sarcastic line’s in Barry’s story is, “Flying? With wings?” Barry is using sarcasm when he is saying this because he is stating the obvious, but the situation in which it applies makes it funny. Since he is referring to a cat when he says this, it makes his statement about the wings sarcastic. Another sarcastic line is, “(“CAT”) was right on point, which gives us every reasons to accept the giant-mutant-flea article at face value.” Barry uses this form of humor when he says this because he's write a “newspaper article” about giant mutant fleas, something that could (hopefully) never happen, so having proof isn’t a valid argument. This is sarcasm because Barry is saying something that isn’t true, per se, and shouldn’t be taken seriously. Barry uses sarcasm to make a point about the credibility of sources, and how easily people will believe them if they’re

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