| Dramatic irony happens when the reader has more | | | | wrath of the gods, the audience understands the |
| information on what is taking place or what may | | | | range and the effect of Oedipus' words better than |
| develop in the story before the character or the | | | | Oedipus himself. |
| characters. The reader may know that the character | | | | Dramatic irony plays a significant part in the success |
| is depending on untrustworthy people, even his | | | | of many of Shakespeare's plays. For example: in |
| enemies, or that he is taking step towards a wrong | | | | Merchant of Venice, the audience knows that Lancelot |
| solution, but the main character or the other characters | | | | is deceiving his father; in Tempest, Miranda does not |
| inside the story may not be privy to those the facts. | | | | know that Gonzalo is on the island, but Prospero and |
| Most writers consider dramatic irony as the most | | | | the audience do; in Macbeth, Duncan is unaware of |
| powerful means to keep readers' interest on the story | | | | Macbeth's plans but the audience knows; in Othello, the |
| by creating a contrast between the character's | | | | audience is on to Iago's deception, but Othello is not; |
| present situation and the action that will unfold. | | | | and in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two |
| As a literary tool, dramatic irony not only puts the | | | | Gentlemen of Verona misunderstandings among the |
| reader in a superior position, but also, it encourages his | | | | characters are obvious to the audience, but not to the |
| curiosity, his hopes, and his fears concerning when and | | | | characters. |
| if the character will find out the truth inside the events | | | | George Orwell uses dramatic irony in Animal Farm |
| or situations in the story. Sometimes, the dramatic irony | | | | through the difference of what the animals are aware |
| of the truth may be hidden in the backstories of the | | | | of and what the readers recognize. The reader knows |
| characters; at other times, it may surface from a | | | | that the pigs have used the money from the sale of |
| misunderstanding between the characters. Then, it | | | | Boxer to the horse slaughterer to buy whiskey. |
| may lurk inside a deception that the reader knows of | | | | In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, readers already |
| but the main character doesn't. | | | | know that Elizabeth doesn't care for Darcy. Then |
| A less effective dramatic irony also happens when the | | | | Darcy, too, finds out that fact when Elizabeth rejects |
| character knows something the reader does not. Even | | | | his proposal. When Emma--in Emma by Jane Austen, |
| if this scheme creates curiosity as to why a certain | | | | again--plays with the lives of people around her, the |
| character is behaving in an odd way, if pushed too far | | | | readers are privy to her intentions but the characters in |
| and not handled with skill, it may tire the reader easily. | | | | the novel are not. |
| During the times of antiquity, dramatic irony appeared in | | | | In most historical stories, because the readers know |
| Greek and Roman literature in stage plays when the | | | | the historical facts, they may be ahead of the |
| chorus or a narrator talked to the audience and | | | | characters living inside the stories. One such |
| informed the people about the facts that the | | | | heart-rending journal belongs to Anne Frank. |
| characters in the play did not know of. Maybe | | | | With his first-rate thrillers, Dean Koontz also creates |
| because of this, dramatic irony is also called tragic | | | | great suspense and holds his readers spellbound by |
| irony, although dramatic irony is not necessarily tragic. | | | | staging and overlapping sensational events that the |
| In modern times, this style of informing the reader is | | | | readers understand beforehand but the characters do |
| accomplished on stage by a character talking "aside" | | | | not. |
| or by a narrator as in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" or | | | | In the TV series, Smallville featuring Superman |
| by the master of ceremonies as in the movie | | | | episodes, the teenager Clark Kent is unaware of his |
| "Cabaret." | | | | background and what Lex Luthor will mean to him in |
| The most used example of dramatic irony is from | | | | the future while the viewers are already familiar with |
| early Greece in Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex. | | | | these facts. |
| Oedipus does not know that he is the one who killed | | | | The active involvement and expectations of the |
| his own father unknowingly and committed incest with | | | | readers and audiences always heighten the intensity |
| his own mother. When Oedipus tells his | | | | and propel a forward motion in any story. Thus, the |
| brother-in-law--Creon--that a man is a fool if he thinks | | | | tool of dramatic irony should not be neglected by a |
| that he can sin against his family and escape the | | | | writer who wants to keep his readers on their toes. |