I. What is Dramatic irony?
Irony is when you get the opposite of what you expect, especially if the result is humorous or striking in some way. Dramatic irony, however, is slightly different: it’s when the audience knows something the characters don’t — so the characters might get an unexpected outcome, but for the audience it’s not unexpected at all.
We all know the ending of Titanic — that ship is going down. But everyone on board thinks that it’s “unsinkable”!
In the Action Philosophers! comic book, a bunch of ancient Greek philosophers are arguing about the nature of reality, and they’re about to have a huge brawl. Suddenly, Democritus steps onto the scene and tells everyone that he has a solution! The universe, he says, is made up of tiny “atoms” that rearrange themselves to create all the different forms of matter we see around us. All the other philosophers find this idea so ridiculous that they collapse in laughter and forget about their quarrel. Of course, the reader knows that Democritus will one day be proven correct.
Dramatic irony can happen when the characters just don’t know what kind of movie they’re in. In a horror movie, for example, the characters might be exploring a creepy old basement when one says “Don’t be a wimp, there’s nothing down here!” Even if we’ve never seen the movie before, we know it’s a horror movie and we can be pretty sure that there is something down there — only the characters don’t know about it.
III. The Importance of Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is often used for laughs — our extra information makes the characters appear ridiculous because we know what they’re doing won’t work. Perhaps more often, though, it’s a way of building tension. When we have information the characters don’t have, we want to shout a warning through the screen. Audience members end up on the edge of their seats, anticipating that something terrible is going to happen that the characters can’t see coming. There’s something about this tension that reminds us of our own vulnerability — after all, if the character on screen can’t see the murder creeping up behind them, then maybe you can’t either…
Every once in a while, dramatic irony can be used to give a little bonus to people who know the series well. Take the flashback episode of Firefly, when we see Zoe and Wash meet for the first time. Fans of the show know that the two of them will end up married, but if it was your first time watching you might miss out on the joke.
IV. Examples of of Dramatic Irony in Literature
The ending of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame contains dramatic irony because Quasimodo (the hunchback) doesn’t realize who the good guys are. He is trying to protect his beloved Esmerelda, but he doesn’t realize that the gypsies are actually coming to save her, not to harm her. We won’t spoil the ending for you, but it’s not the same as what they put in the Disney version…
Most Shakespeare plays have dramatic irony somewhere in them. For example, the title character from Othello is very trusting and keeps saying that he believes in his dear friend, “honest Iago.” We in the audience, though, understand perfectly well that Iago is a traitor who wants nothing more than to bring Othello down.
V. Examples in Popular Culture
Disney’s Mulan is pretty much entirely based on dramatic irony. We know that Mulan is a woman who has disguised herself as a man and joined the army. But the other characters around her have no idea, and there are almost constant jokes based on this deception: for example, the songs “Be a Man” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For.”
In the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, the two main characters commit a murder and stash the body in a cupboard. The film takes place over the course of a dinner party, and the cupboard with its grisly contents is always in the background. None of the guests know about the murder and there’s constant suspense as we wonder whether they will accidentally find out — or whether one of the murderers, overcome with guilt, will confess. In one particularly tense scene, the conversation turns to a discussion of murder, and the two guilty men grow increasingly nervous.
The sitcom Coupling opens with a clever reversal of dramatic irony. We see Steve getting ready to meet up with his girlfriend, and saying that it’s time to break up with her. Then we see Susan getting ready to meet up with her boyfriend, not sure what he wants. We feel bad for Susan, knowing that she’s about to get dumped. But then it turns out they’re two completely separate characters who don’t even know each other, and they’re about to go out on completely separate dates!