What is dramatic irony?

We know something you don't know

Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows something but the characters in the story does not.

When the audience know something that the characters do not.

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

Dramatic irony is when the audience of a play, or the reader of a story, knows something that a character in the play or the story, does not know. For example, a character may state, 'I'm really looking forward to getting back to my own house, and my own bed', after being away for two weeks. However, the reader knows that in his absence, his house has been burgled, and turned upside down. The reader knows that his optimism, looking forward to going home, is misplaced.

Hi Justice, it's a technique. It's when the audience knows something that the characters on stage don't know because they learned something that the characters didn't. For example, maybe the audience saw a scene where a killer was preparing to kill someone. After the death, the audience knows who the killer is but the characters on stage investigating the death don't know who the killer was. Writers use it a lot in their plays and screen writers use it a lot too. Most of the time it is used to create suspense and tension.

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

When you as the reader of whatever you’re reading, knows something which the character dosen’t

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.

A dramatic irony can take place in movies, plays, theatre and sometimes in poetry. We can call dramatic irony a situation where the audience is aware of a factor that the character is not aware of.

As exemple we can use Mcbeth of Shakespeare where Duncan says trusting mcbeth while not being aware of the prophecy of witches fortelling that McBeth is going to be king and kill duncan. The audience is then aware of the prophecy of witches. It is then called a dramatic irony

a dramatic irony has three stage wich are; installation, exploitation and resolution.

To conclude a dramatic irony is useful in stimulationg strong emotions and suspense in the reader awaiting for the character to come to the understandingof the situation

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!

Dramatic irony is a plot device that is often used in theatre, literature and film. It is used to highlight the difference between a characters understanding of a situation and that of the audiences. Usually with dramatic irony the reader or the audience will have knowledge about some important piece of information, while the character or characters do not yet possess this same knowledge or information.

An example of dramatic irony could be: a girl in a horror film hides in a closet where the monster just went (the audience knows the monster is there, but she does not).

Dramatic Irony occurs in a text when we (the reader) know something that the characters in the text do not.

Hi there!

Dramatic irony occurs in everyday life when a situation is happening and yet the person within the situation is unaware of what is occurring.

For example, if a person were to be mocking a friend for losing his wallet, but did not realize that he had also lost his own wallet, this would be dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony is a literary device whereby the audience/reader is more aware and have a better understanding of the events occurring than the actual characters.