January 21, 2009, 20:38
KallehIrony
I know we've talked about
irony before, but the search function didn't work tonight, so I am starting a new thread.
Clarence Page
wrote this about
irony:
quote:
Irony is hard to define, but you know when you don't see it.
Irony is the gap between ideals and reality, the gap between expectations and what happens.
It was ironic of Thomas Jefferson to defend as "unalienable" the rights of all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while he owned slaves.
It was ironic of Abraham Lincoln to author an Emancipation Proclamation that only freed the slaves in the states that had broken away from the Union.
It was ironic of African-Americans to fight a war against Nazism abroad and return to racial segregation at home.
When I first read his definition (a gap "between ideals and reality or between expectations and what happens"), I didn't agree that defined
irony. Yet, his examples seemed ironic to me, though not to Shu. Shu thought his examples just defined
hypocritical. What do you think?
January 21, 2009, 22:13
tsuwmI tend to agree with Shu (although I'd say the parallel construct is hypocrisy).
January 23, 2009, 19:56
KallehBy the way, now that the "find" function is working again, here is one of the
threads where we talked about
irony.
January 23, 2009, 22:03
goofyquote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
When I first read his definition (a gap "between ideals and reality or between expectations and what happens"), I didn't agree that defined irony.
That is one of the definitions of
irony:
2. fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things.