Examples Of Irony In Romeo And Juliet

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Literary Analysis Essay: Irony
When you think of irony, do you think of, for example someone dying before the day of their birthday? Well, that’s not really irony. Irony is like a fire station burning down. It’s ironic because you would expect a fire station to have the necessary needs to put it out. In the play “Romeo and Juliet” there are several different types of irony including verbal, situational, and dramatic.
Verbal irony in Romeo and Juliet had both a humorous and intense effect. For example, on Page 236 Act 3 Scene 2 Line 113-114, Juliet says “That banished, that one word banished, Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.” Not really meaning there are ten thousand Tybalts, but she’d rather him die ten thousand more times than Romeo being …show more content…

Dramatic irony is the audience knows more than the characters do. The use of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet makes the audience feel excited or apprehension towards that moment. For instance on page 200 lines 106-111 act 1 scene 4, Romeo has terrible dream and he "fears that some terrible event caused by the stars will begin at the party," as stated in the footnotes. Little did he know was that that terrible event was death and will be his own. The audience knows this because the prologue at he beginning of the play gives away the ending. Another example is on page 235 lines 37-70 act 3 scene 2, is all a big confusion between Juliet and the Nurse. all along the nurse is weeping over Tybalt screaming he's dead and Juliet thinks she's talking about Romeo. They then start saying things like "Vile earth, to earth resign; and motion here. and thou and Romeo press one heavy bier," and " Tybalt is gone, and Romeo Banished..." It's only then until the nurse said that Romeo killed Tybalt did Juliet realize. The audience knew that Juliet was heartbroken because she thought Romeo was dead and the Nurse …show more content…

When Shakespeare used verbal irony in the play, some of it was for sarcastic use and it created a humorous effect, but when he used it way that wasn't supposed to be sarcastic it was kind like "What did he mean by that, this is confusing." Situational irony also gave that high and low effect on me because when Romeo was sad about Rosaline and went to the party and saw the love of his life Juliet, I was happy and excited because it was a total surprise and Romeo being depressed all the time didn't seem like such a good story to read. Dramatic irony has to be my favorite that Shakespeare used because it always made me think in my head "If he or she only knew." When he utilized this, it caught my attention and made me want to scream to that fictional character "No!" or "Don't do that you crazy person", the whole time something like that came into play. I thought it was a clever Idea for Shakespeare to used these types of literary tools. I think if he hadn't used those mind bobbing devices then Romeo an Juliet wouldn't be a such a good story as it turned out to

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