Define the term. It’s not so easy now is it? Yet everyone knows what it means, they know what you mean when you say ‘now isn’t that ironic?’ with that bitter tone in your voice, that self-mocking expression in your eyes, yet no one, not one person, could actually be able to tell you what the blasted word means. It’s definition.
If you go to the dictionary, you get a rather large paragraph.
Irony; n pl; -nies 1. a figure of speech or literary device in which the literal meaning is the opposite of that intended, especially, as in the Greek sense, when the locution understates the effect intended, used in ridicule or merely playfully.
And that’s just the first definition! Already I’m confused, and this is the dictionary we’re talking about. The second definition;
An ironical utterance or expression
3. simulated ignorance in discussion (Socratic Irony)
4. the quality or effect, or implication of a speech or situation in a play by the characters of the piece (dramatic irony)
5. an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been expected.
6. an ironical quality [L, from Gk: dissimulation, understatement]-Ironist n
So, lets dissect the definition shall we? This is according to The Macquarie Concise Dictionary, Third Edition by the way, we must name our sources or be accused of plagiarising. An Ironical utterance or expression, that helps us understand what the term irony actually mean does it not? But that is only because we already –knew- what irony is.
I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t got the least idea what Socratic Irony is, but I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Socrates? That dead Greek guy, smart as all get out and all that. Dramatic irony I can define much more…coherently than the dictionary. Quite simply, it’s when the audience know something about a character that the actual characters of the play do not know. You all know Shakespeare right? Othello? How about Iago? –The- bad guy in all of Shakespeares plays, a rather nasty piece of work isn’t he? Brilliant, but evil, conniving, untrustworthy, deceitful. –We- know this, we the audience know how evil he is, indeed we’re told right from the start, yet it is not until the final act that the rest of the cast realise. And all through the play there are references to ‘honest Iago’, this is dramatic irony.
(yeah, I’m bored, so sorry if this starts to sound like a literary critical essay, and I can’t get on the net tonight so I have to do something to keep my mind occupied).
Oh, and what the devil does ‘locution’ mean? And no, I didn’t spell it wrong, it’s what the dictionary have. Lets see….locution n; 1. A particular form of expression; a phrase or expression.
2. style of speech or verbal expression; phraseology.
That’s almost as bad as the definition for irony. Not even the dictionary knows the meaning, a concise, short, -understandable- meaning for irony, instead it has to rely on examples, and even then it can’t move away from the word ‘irony’. Do any of you know the song, Isn’t it Ironic? Who sings it slips my mind for the moment, but the lyrics are all full of ironic circumstances. ‘It’s a traffic jam, when you’re already late, a no smoking sign, on your cigarette break, it’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?’
‘he waited his whole damn life, to catch that flight and as the plane crashed down he thought, well isn’t this nice?’ Irony, the word, the term, the idea, cannot be defined by itself, it is instead, defined by it’s expression, the way in which it is used.
‘Figures’. A phrase I use all the time, throughout my blog. Something happens to boost my spirits, I’m like ‘yes! I had a good day today!’ and then I go home, and as expected, something happens to screw up my mood. That something is usually mother dearest. I even had a genuinely happy post once, I had things all planned out, I would get a scholarship for a uni over east, in my gap year I’d travel, and work, getting paid for travelling, and be happy then. I was doing well at the time, in my classes, or I thought I was. That was when I was at least passing all of them. I had spoken to a few people that I rarely speak to, and I was HAPPY, genuinely, earnestly happy. It was even titled ‘life is good’, you see what I mean? I was joyous, expectant, anxious but exhilarated, things were going MY way and I could see how they were, how I could control things so that I walked where –I- wanted to, not where anyone else wanted me to.
*Sighs* But, as expected, since I finished my blog with ‘life is good, now, ask me again tomorrow, or even this evening, and I’ll tell you a different tale’. And sure enough (that blog didn’t get posted by the way, for some spastic malfunction of the server) that evening, mother dearest burst my bubble, ruined my good mood, as expected, and life stopped looking quite so rosy. Figures eh?
She comments that I never smile, a friend of mine, whom I text regularly, commented on seeing my fugly face, ‘you should learn to smile honey, you look sad’. I have mentioned before, even from my very first post that I was a bit ‘emo’, depressed. Heh, no one actually believed me, not from the first post. Sure I was stringing them along, positive that I wasn’t ‘emo’. Yes well, we all know that I was telling the truth do we not? I haven’t honestly smiled for years, since I was oh…11 or so, at least. Oh don’t get me wrong, I –can- smile, spending 8 years on stage, performing does that to a girl, I can smile like the best of them and keep that smile in place, but it’s not real you know? It’s not a smile that comes from my heart, it’s just an expression not a smile. I’ve perfected that smile, polished and honed it, so that anyone who saw me smile, in real life or on a camera, would never have thought that I didn’t know how too, that I didn’t smile from pleasure.
Even via text, like this, on msn or the like, I do not ‘smile’ as such, if I put something else in with the word it’s usually ‘faintly’ or ‘slightly’. I don’t smile like you do, you smile with your whole body, your face glows your eyes light up and you look –happy-, your entire body is happy from the force of your smile. The force of the emotion you felt that caused you to smile, to laugh. I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. Not really. When I’m happy, my eyes glow, literally. Amused, they dance. You know that expression? ‘her eyes danced with amusement’? With me it’s not an expression, they do. My eyes laugh at you, even if the rest of my face is impassive. My eyes show my mood, and as such, change colour. Don’t look at me like that, I’m telling the truth! When I’m mischevious, or impish, messing around and knowing that I can get away with it, they are green, a rich, vibrant green. Piss me off, genuinely piss me off so that I’m –angry- not just annoyed, and nigh on raging, they’re purple. You know the roiling, dark, angry purple of storm clouds? That sinister rumble that’s just beyond hearing yet you can see it in their underbellies? That’s my eyes. Neat eh?
Now, you may be wondering what colour my eyes actually are, usually. My redeeming features, my eyes and my hair. Hair’s no biggie, curly, thick, lush…yeah, I’m proud of my hair, when it’s not frizzing and driving me batty. You know why I say my eyes? They’re very pretty, blue and green. No, not one blue and one green, they are both blue and green. The green of new growth around the pupil and the glittering blue of the ocean, or a sapphire. Rich. They mingle with each other you know, blending as natural colours are wont to do.
But colour aside, my eyes have an unnerving quality. They’re very intense. I’m a perceptive girl, I see things that others miss, and as such, I see more than most people. My eyes show that, they’re too knowing. Not very many people can meet my gaze, and hold it. My father’s one, Xin is another. And even then, with Xin, I think it is because brown eyes are hard to read. And I’m not sure if his eyes are brown or black…meh. My dad, because he has nothing to hide from me, and I do not hide from him. I know him better than my mother does, and I get along with my father better than I do mother dearest.
People think you don’t, wouldn’t notice if you don’t meet their gaze. If they look at your nose, or between your eyes, at an ear, whatever. But I do. That’s where most people look, when, or if they gaze at my face at all, they look at my nose, or between my eyebrows, my mouth, my cheek. Never at my eyes. They might glance there briefly, but what they see, the knowing, the perception, is too much and they have to look elsewhere. I challenge you, to meet my gaze and hold it. To let me see into your eyes, as I do with everyone, and not shy away, to not look somewhere else to put up thicker defences than what you had before meeting my gaze again. Think you’ll be able to do it?
I don’t.
(Sorry for the massive long post, but I’m in a thinking mood. And now I’ve just come up with another topic hehe.)
One of the common cry’s that have been circulating around, since I worried you all, is that I’ve done so much for you, that I’ve comforted you when you needed it and all that fruit. That it’s from my lack of concern for myself, which is why –others- care so much?
This might hurt you, but I tell you honestly and genuinely, that I would do exactly the same for anyone. I offer exactly the same, -for- everyone. If you need a shoulder to cry on, you can cry on mine. Need a comforting arm wrapped around you, a post to lean on, a rock to cling to in the turbulent waters of your emotions, your problems, I’ll be there. Friend, foe, stranger, all are one and the same to me. I do not care about your race, your beliefs, your prejudices, so long as you don’t try to force them on me, I’ll support you.
I’m a loyal lass, once you’ve earnt my loyalty, come Hell or high water, I will stand beside you. And even should you choose to not want my support, think that you don’t need me to stand beside you and face the world, dare it to do it’s bloody well worst, then know, that even then, I’ll be waiting.
It always, always surprises me at how lightly people take their friends, at how they’ll just…brush them off, ignore them, break up with them as though they are of no matter. Perhaps it’s just me, because I haven’t had very many people to –call- friend, well, whom I would call a friend in any case, but those that I do call a friend, I value. That’s why I’m here. Because of those that would not be around, those that I call a friend. A select few, very few, now that I think on it, but I value them, I care for them more than others. Only one of whom I know, face to face, would I call a friend. And he berates me for not talking about my own problems heh. I much rather talk about his, about any of yours, than dwell on my own.
It’s bad enough that mother dearest thinks I call her a bitch. I ask you, honestly, genuinely, when have I –ever-, on my blog or outside it, called her a bitch? Just said it said that I hate her because she’s oh, -sooo- mean? WITHOUT giving you the events? And even then, if I had not on that occasion, you could tell, you know why I would say it? But no, I don’t accuse her, as she does me, I just complain about what she does. *sighs* Yes well, I think that’s enough about that for now. I’m rather proud of myself, all that posting and mother dearest only got mentioned what…twice? But things are doing a bit better now, she’s given up on trying to control me, for a bit, since I proved to her that I would NOT be controlled and that I did NOT actually, need her for transportation. I was willing to be my own transport, even to the effect of riding through the biggest crime suburbs in Perth to get home in the middle of the night, on a Friday night none the less.
Meh, I think I’ll stop now, and go to sleep or something of the like, before I find something else to talk about. I’ve been typing for an hour or so, and I think that’s enough.
And I really ought to stop writing a blog when I’m in a thinking mood, I wouldn’t want you people to think I actually have a brain and can think at all, let alone faster than most of you. Scary thought aint it? An intelligent female :P
