Until recently I thought I understood irony, correlating
it with humorous wordplay and deadpan understatements. Several recent
emails on the subject, coupled with a period of self-doubt, have led me
to expand my view. The following 13 questions illustrate the use of irony
in domestic settings, suggesting that irony, with its multiple, contradictory
meanings, may offer a route to personal transformation not commonly acknowledged
in the current literature.
1. Irony or coincidence - does this email have
a message?
The subject line of the email read Irony. It was
from Susan, currently living in Namibia as a Peace Corps volunteer,
who forwarded an article from The Daily Telegraph. According to the
article, a 38-year old resident of San Francisco became the first American
to come to grips with the concept of irony. "It was weird," the man
was quoted as saying. "I was in London and, like, talking to this guy
and it was raining and stuff and he said, 'great weather,' or something
like that. And I thought - wait a minute, no way is it great weather."
But the American soon caught on and started using irony himself. "I
say it all the time," he said. "Last weekend I was, like, grilling steaks
and I burned the crap out of them so I said 'great weather'."
2.
Does irony explain the poor impression I've been making, or have I been
associating with the wrong people?
Susan's was the second email I received that week about irony. The earlier
email was from a friend in Berkeley who, knowing that I'd been having
trouble presenting myself in a credible manner, sent several quotes
from an academic paper about irony in the work of Seurat and Laforgue.
"The ironist distances himself from his subject by stating the opposite
of what he thinks or feels. Through a series of concealing and revealing
gestures, he can safely lay bare his innermost concerns. This critical
distance allows for self-mastery, an oblique but sustained gaze at one's
own questioning." And, "irony presumes an astute audience." I am not
particularly interested in Seurat's painting or the poetry of Laforgue,
but after months of feeling invisible, I am relieved to think that I
might be an ironist rather than a poor communicator.
3. If irony means multiple
things simultaneously, why am I the one that feels misunderstood?
Irony is an ineffective, messy way to communicate. All too often the
listener hears only one of the messages, missing the rich layering of
the ironist's intent. In written communications, we have developed signs
to point the reader in the right direction. The exclamation point, whose
use is frowned upon in prose, is enjoying a revival in email. Hi Karen!
So glad to hear from you! These signs of enthusiasm are often accompanied
by smilies, those faces constructed keystroke by keystroke to indicate
that I was joking J or conveying regrettably bad news L. In person,
facial tics and body language are used to suggest a context for our
words. Mine must be out of sync, because I often find myself wanting
to hold up a sign that reads, "Just joking."
4. Is my use of irony
a problem or a solution?
In the last several decades we've seen a backlash against irony. Critics
suggest that irony perpetuates emotional dishonesty. They recommend
instead answering questions sincerely and embracing our experience without
sneering. Personally I feel irony is a healthy response to the rhetoric
of appliance salesmen and the Bush Administration, and I'd like to see
more of it.
5. Did the imaginary
friends of my childhood foretell a tendency toward irony?
The use of irony may be a dominant characteristic of prickly, pessimistic
people who were born waiting for the other shoe to drop. When I was
a child I traveled with a cast of imaginary characters. Room needed
to be saved for them in the car. It is possible that my childhood friends
reveal the seeds of irony; more likely I just wanted a lot of space
for myself.
6. [The sixth question was neither interesting
nor ironic and has been deleted.]
7. Is this story ironic?
Years ago a friend and I were driving down a boring stretch of Interstate
5, making a list, as we liked to do on road trips, about the characteristics
we were looking for in a mate. We had just listed "ironic sense of humor"
when we were pulled over for speeding.
8. Is irony the pop
quiz of contemporary life?
When I was younger I was accused of starting a topic in the middle of
a paragraph and, if the listener showed interest, continuing on to the
beginning. Irony is a similar technique, a way of determining who are
my people and who are not. Most often students never know they have
been tested and neglect to ask for the results.
9. If I employ irony
to create distance, why do I feel ignored?
There have been times in my life when people could tell I was in love,
even when I tried to keep my lover a secret. They would comment on my
appearance, or offer themselves up as more appropriate candidates. Now
my unhappiness seems equally apparent, and people are keeping their
distance. If I intend to create space for myself through the use of
irony, I should be glad of the result. But I'm not.
10. Is irony an explanation
for my poor choice of drinking companions?
Because irony employs nuances in the language and assumes a shared cultural
context, it often excludes foreigners and small children. The inability
to laugh at poor translations or cultural juxtapositions with a traveling
companion is one of the things I miss when traveling by myself. This
may explain why I once found myself reminiscing about Hogan's Heroes,
a program I never liked, with two other Americans after discovering
that reruns were being shown on German television.
11. Are the dinnertime
tactics of mothers universal or ironic?
Yang Li and I were having dinner at the Korean restaurant near my hotel
in Beijing. Yang Li had visited California several months earlier and
I asked how her impressions of the United States had changed since her
trip."At first I was worried about what I would see," she
said. "We have heard so many things. When I was little, my mother
told me I had to eat my dinner because of the starving Capitalist babies
in America.""My mother told me to eat my dinner because of
the starving children in China." We both laugh, acknowledging the
distance we have traveled from our mothers. Still, part of us remains
at our childhood dinner tables, surprised that the other would have
believed such nonsense.
12. Is my husband ironic
or does he have a poor memory?
"I enjoyed the Kronos Quartet that time we saw them," my husband
said recently. "Really?" I replied. "I thought you hated
them. You made those loud male sighing noises throughout the performance."
I had assumed the music did not appeal to my husband, but perhaps he
ironically needed the distance of five years before making up his mind.
13. Can irony be compared
to marathon runners?
Irony does not represent a quick fix. With its distancing capabilities
and multiple meanings, it is a technique well suited for the long run.
Just as it takes years for a palate to mature, refining a personal style,
including how to string words together in a sentence, is the work of
our lives and irony allows us to keep at it without undue attention
from the overly earnest. (13a) Or am I just fooling myself?
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