Tone & Irony ADAPTED BY MS. TEREF :D

Tone – attitude toward readers or characters (determined by diction, punctuation, syntax…) EXAMPLE OF DICTION: He retorted, “ How dare you speak to me like that?” vs. He responded, “What did you say?” EXAMPLE OF PUNCTUATION: Excuse me? vs. Excuse me! vs. Excuse me. vs. Excuse me??? vs. Excuse me… EXAMPLE OF SYNTAX: Can I open the window? (question) I was wondering if, perchance, you wouldn’t mind my opening the window. (declarative sentence)

Irony (a component of tone) Irony vs. Sarcasm Sarcasm=the listener knows the speaker means the opposite (e.g. “Gee, thanks for stepping on my foot.”) Irony = the listener doesn’t know the speaker means the opposite (e.g. “I drink to your long life” – Montressor to Fortunato)

1 a) Verbal Irony  UNDERSTATEMENT Definition: We SAY, SPEAK, UTTER one thing, but mean another. It is all in the WORDS! Understatement= words don’t match the importance of the situation “How are you?” (asking a very ill person) “I’ve been better.” (instead of “Man, I just wanna die…”) or (upon seeing a very inebriated, staggering friend), “Did you have a good time?” (instead of “Man, are you hammered!”)

1 b) Verbal Irony  OVERSTATEMENT or HYPERBOLE Overstatement or hyperbole = exaggeration of truth Tennyson says of his eagle "Close to the sun in lonely lands," appears to be true though we know it isn't Wordsworth's daffodils "stretched in never-ending line," a visual experience not literally true. Frost's "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence" in "Road Not Taken” is so subtle we barely notice it

1 c) Verbal Irony Double Entendre Double entendre - comes from French: double = "double" and entendre = "to mean", "to understand” In the thriller The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lecter states he is "having an old friend for dinner" — the statement innocently reads as him having invited the friend to share an evening meal, but awareness of the character's cannibalism suggests that he intends to eat the friend as the meal. Title of the short story, "The Most Dangerous Game", by Richard Connell, in which the title can refer both to a "game" that is most dangerous to play, and the "game" that is most dangerous to hunt. Risqué: Rock ’n’ roll lyrics, e.g. AC/DC, “You shook me all night long”

2) Situational Irony Situational irony –descrepancy between our hopes and expectations and reality - often pessimistic Fortunato’s name is opposite of his (unfortunate) situation (“The Cask of Amontillado”) Coleridge's "The Ancient Mariner"--"Water, water everywhere," but not a "drop to drink."

3) Cosmic Irony Cosmic irony = very pessimistic and fatalistic; even if things go well, people’s lives end badly E.g. – your text, p. 386

4) Dramatic Irony Dramatic irony = a character doesn’t know what will happen, but we, the readers, know! Fortunato doesn’t realize he’s been led into a trap by Montressor who is about to immure him (wall him in), but, we, readers, know! (“The Cask of Amontillado”)