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My understanding of (situational) irony is that it involves a certain expectation for the outcome of a situation but the reality ends up being opposite to that. I'm not sure if there has to some explicit action to ensure the expected outcome e.g. I guess it's not irony if the weatherman forecasts rain and it ends up being sunny even though the expectation was clearly the opposite of the true outcome.

1) In a TV show, and a man in his suit calls his wife and tells her he's working very hard. The camera pans out and the audience sees him in a bar and not working.

Is this ironic for the audience? I guess from the comments so far that the answer is no but is it because the audience did not participate in trying to make the man work or is it some other reason? The criterion for the result being the opposite of what is expected is met here.

2) Donald Trump hates foreigners but has a foreign-born wife.

I understand that this makes him hypocritical but is this also ironic? Here, one expects Trump to marry an American but he does the opposite. And it seems very similar to the example below.

3) My girlfriend says she hates blonde men. She breaks up with me and then has a blonde boyfriend.

From my perspective, is this ironic?

I do not see why 2) and 3) are different but the comments say that 3) is irony but 2) is not.

user1936752
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  • 1 - No; 2 - No; 3 - Yes. – Tushar Raj Mar 06 '18 at 14:39
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    Could you explain why in an answer please? – user1936752 Mar 06 '18 at 15:02
  • "Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders' incomprehension." Wikipedia – Nigel J Mar 06 '18 at 15:07
  • @user1936752: I could try. But you have to help me. Good questions on ELU are expected to show research. Please try to research what irony means and include it in your post. And then tell us which of your situations you think it applies to. – Tushar Raj Mar 06 '18 at 15:11
  • I strongly encourage you to go through the help center guide on how to ask a good question. – Tushar Raj Mar 06 '18 at 15:13
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    Please include the research you’ve done. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic. // In spite of @Nigel J's statement, there are various and distinct types of irony. You need to add definitions of 'irony of fate' and other forms you might consider relevant. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 06 '18 at 17:58
  • Hello, i've added what I understand and where my confusion is around. Also, the question linked is not a duplicate as it addresses a different point - I'd like to know why these examples are not examples of irony whereas I do understand why the answers in that question are not ironic. – user1936752 Mar 07 '18 at 06:21
  • No.1 is an example of a man lying (or telling a white lie) to his wife. What is ironic about that? No.2 is indeed hypocritical. I would question whether Trump hates foreigners, his grandfather was German, it might be better to say he is anti-immigrant (unless they come from Norway). You could say it was ironic of him to say that illegal immigrants will do anything to remain in the US. – Mari-Lou A Mar 07 '18 at 08:27
  • I think that 2. is ironic and 3. isn't. So it may be that this question is just opinion-based. – AndyT Mar 07 '18 at 11:29

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