[The Saucepan Man]

Well, I think that there's a bit of playing fast and loose with irony going on here. It's a concept that is often mis-used. Alanis Morisette found this out with her song "Ironic", which was criticised for using many situations which weren't ironic at all.

I'm no expert, but I've done a bit of research and have been able to identify four broad categories of irony:

1) Socratic irony - As the definition above states, this is when someone deliberately asks seemingly ignorant questions and professes a willingness to learn, so as to expose the greater ignorance of the apparently wise person or people he is questioning.

2) Dramatic irony – Where the character in a play or book is unaware of what fate has in store for him, but the audience/reader is fully aware.

3) Rhetorical irony – Generally when we say something that has one apparent meaning, but is actually intended to convey another, often opposite, meaning. For example, saying on a cold, wet and windy day “Well, isn’t this just great weather? (opposite) or “Bit damp today, isn’t it” (understatement).

4) The irony of fate – Which is broadly what we are talking about here. It's a difficult one to define, but I think that it can best be described as a situation or event that has occurred naturally or unintentionally, but the timing or circumstances of which seem deliberately perverse, almost an act of malice on fate’s part, although, contrary to the usual dictionary definition, it doesn’t have to be incongruous or the opposite of what might be expected. An example is Alanis Morisette’s death row prisoner whose pardon comes 2 minutes late.

But something isn't ironic just because it is coincidental or unexpected or unfortunate. Consider Alanis Morisette's rain on a wedding day. That's not ironic, it's just bad luck, unless perhaps the wedding had deiberately been planned to take place somewhere where it hadn’t rained for 100 years or something.

The best example so far is Gollum’s situation, which is is ironic on two levels. First, he is the victim of irony of fate, in that he stumbles and falls into the volcano at just the moment he achieves his life’s ambition. Secondly, we can see dramatic irony in the character who most wanted the Ring not to be destroyed being the one who destroys it.

I think that Merry stabbing the Witch-King with the dagger from the Barrow is ironic, but only because it is combined with the Witch-King facing someone who is not bound by the prophecy concerning his apparent invulnerability. Of all the combatants that he might have come across on Pelennor Fields, he encounters a hobbit armed with a dagger specifically wrought to fight his former realm and Eowyn, the only person there who can beat his prophecy.

I'm not so sure that the other examples given so far sufficiently involve the concept of fate playing tricks on the victim to warrant the label irony. Otherwise, practically every coincidental or unexpected or unlucky situation becomes ironic, and irony ain't that liberal with its favours. For example, that it would be a Hobbit who brought the Ring to Mount Doom was unexpected, but not necessarily ironic. Similarly with Luthien and Beren stealing the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown. Also, both of these situations are deliberately brought about, wheras an ironic situation should occur naturally or unintentionally. I think the same applies with the Ents and Isengard, since they deliberately set out to destroy it.

But it does seem to me that practically the whole of Turin's life might be described as ironic. He brings doom on anyone who harbours him. He kills his best friend who has just rescued him. He marries his siter who just happens to have had her mind wiped by Glaurung and then stumbled into the realm where he is living. Or it would be ironic, if the whole thing had not been manipulated by Morgoth. It wasn't fate playing tricks on Turin, but the Dark Lord. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[ February 06, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]