Definition:
An occasion in a play, film, or other work in which a character's words or actions convey a meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the audience. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more than one or several of the characters onscreen, a condition which pushes audience attention into the future because it creates anticipation about what is going to happen when the truth comes out. That anticipation is known as ironic tension, and it is bracketed by a scene of revelation (the moment the audience is given information of which a character is unaware) and recognition (the moment when the character discovers what the audience has already known . . .). Dramatic irony comes in two flavors--suspense, which can be used to inspire fear in the audience, and comic, in which a misunderstanding is 'milked' to produce laughter. . . .
"In There's Something About Mary (1998), [when] Ted thinks he's been arrested for picking up a hitchhiker while the audience knows he's being questioned by police about a murder, otherwise innocuous lines he delivers, such as 'I've done it several times before' and 'It's no big deal,' generate laughter."
(Paul Gulino, Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach. Continuum, 2004) - "Etymologically, irony comes from the Greek word for dissembling, and the ancient Greeks used it in reference to that abiding preoccupation of theirs, the gap between appearance and reality, or between truth and belief. What interested them most was dramatic irony, which is what occurs when the reader or the audience knows something that a character doesn't (Oedipus was the favorite example); far from being funny, this was for the Greeks the stuff of tragedy."
(Charles McGrath, "No Kidding: Does Irony Illuminate Or Corrupt?" The New York Times, Aug. 5, 2000)
Also Known As: tragic irony
