IRONY

__**VERBAL IRONY**__

McGraw hill definition of irony: __A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant__ or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. __In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean__.

Example: from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar this passage somewhat serves as a poem) Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones. So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest— **For Brutus is an honorable man**; So are they all, all honorable men--- Come I to speak at Caesar's funeral. Antony's (the speaker's) comment that Brutus, the man who has killed Caesar, is "an honorable man" is an example of verbal irony because he in turn means that Brutus was entirely dishonorable. By saying the opposite of what he means, Antony creates a contrast between what is said and what is meant--- verbal irony.  Watch as Regina George (the blonde one) uses verbal irony in //Mean Girls// by telling a girl she likes an outfit that she actually hates: [|click here to watch!]