What is dramatic irony?

Dramatic irony is a literary device authors employ to emphasise a character's lack of knowledge on an event or issue that the audience would be aware of already.

Dramatic irony is a literary technique where it is clear to the audience or the reader what the character is saying or doing by it is unknown to the other characters

Dramatic irony is when the audience or readers know more about a situation than the character does.

Dramatic irony is when the reader or audience is aware of something that the characters are not. This could be something related to the plot directly e.g. knowing another character's intentions before they are carried out, or as a way to foreshadow future events. By foreshadowing, we expect something to happen as the plot progresses either good or bad. For example, in An Inspector Calls, at the start of the play Mr Birling mentions that there won't be a war and that the Titanic is an unsinkable ship. As the audience, we know that war did break out (WWI) and that the Titanic sank. This therefore makes us wary as an audience because we know that at least some of Mr Birling's opinions are wrong and misguided; therefore inferring something bad is going to happen.

Dramatic irony, a literary device by which the audience’s or reader’s understanding of events or individuals in a work surpasses that of its characters. Dramatic irony is a form of irony that is expressed through a work’s structure: an audience’s awareness of the situation in which a work’s characters exist differs substantially from that of the characters’, and the words and actions of the characters therefore take on a different—often contradictory—meaning for the audience than they have for the work’s characters. Dramatic irony is most often associated with the theatre, but examples of it can be found across the literary and performing arts.

literary device used in a story telling by letting the audience know something that the characters arent yet aware of

Where the audience knows something the characters don't know!

This could be for example when Mr Birling proclaims The Titanic is 'unsinkable!' - the audience of course knows the Titanic in fact sunk. Why is dramatic irony important? Well, it's all about why the author wants us to know more. Mr Birling seems over-confident in the ship, reflecting his over-confidence in himself; he will 'sink' when his reputation is chipped away by The Inspector's revelations, so this is a comedic and foreboding use of dramatic irony!

When the audience is revealed something the characters don't know

Dramatic irony is simply when the audience or reader knows something, and a character does not! The point of this technique is to draw the audience into the story, and to create more tension. A fantastic example of dramatic irony is in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth', when the naive King Duncan thanks Lady Macbeth for her hospitality inviting him into her home, when the audience knows she is plotting to murder her guest!

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that the characters don't.

When the author employs dramatic irony, the desired effect is humour. Usually because the audience is aware of something that the character is not. For example in An Inspector Calls when Mr Birling declares the Titanic is 'Unsinkable.' As a modern day audience we know the Titanic did sink, and so this is to humour the audience and undermine the character of Birling.

Dramatic irony is a technique that was originally used within plays, but is also used in movies now, where something is known or obvious to the audience but not to the characters within the play. For example, in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the audience are told at the beginning of the play from the prologue that a 'pair of star-crossed lovers take their life'. From this the audience now knows that at some point a couple will end up dying but this not known by any characters in the play who think they are all going to live happily ever after. This creates drama throughout the play as the audience do not know when to expect the deaths.

Dramatic Irony occurs mainly in a play where the audience knows a piece of information that a key character does not.

For example: In Romeo and Juliet the character Paris tells the Friar that he and Juliet are going to be married on a certain day BUT we, in the audience, already know that Juliet has said that she would rather die than marry Paris.

Dramatic irony is when the reader (you) knows something important that one or more of the characters in the story don’t know. It is as though you have been let in on a secret by the person narrating the story. It is different from situational irony (see below) - be careful not to confuse these.

To summarise:

• Dramatic Irony is when the reader knows something important that one or more of the characters don’t know.
• situational Irony occurs when an event in a story turns out to be the exact opposite of what the reader had expected to happen.

A situation in plays where the words and actions are known to the audience but not to the character.