Example Essay on Irony

Irony is one of the many literary devices writers use. The irony is a figure of speech that contrasts the expectations of a situation and the reality of that situation. Writes can use many different types of irony in their work. Dramatic, Situation and Verbal are just a few examples of irony. Dramatic irony is when an audience watching a play or reading a novel understands what is happening. Still, the characters are unaware of the situation.

For example, someone in a horror movie goes to hide in the closet. The audience knows the killer is hiding in that same closet. However, the character doesn’t. Situational irony occurs when events or actions have a result opposite from what was expected or intended. It’s like watching a basketball game coming to an end.

Your team only needs one point to win the game. Your teammate puts up the last shot of the night. The shot is spinning around the rim for what seems like forever until it starts to tip in. It’s looking like you’re going to win; however, at the very last second, it falls out, causing you to lose. Verbal irony is using words to say one thing but mean something different.

Verbal irony can be quite close to sarcasm, but they are not the same. As an example, you made a cake for your mother’s birthday. When you were carrying the cake for her birthday, you accidentally dropped it. You go red in the face when you hear a chorus of good jobs from your family. Irony is used throughout “To Serve Man.”

The first example is the title itself. When you first read the title, you think that it would mean someone to be of service to another. When the Kanamit first came, everyone was in the caucus. They claimed their motives were to bring peace and plenty, which we enjoy. With all the wars and distrust going around in the 1950s, nobody really wanted to believe them.

Over time the Kanamit gained the trust of humans, only to eat them in the end. There was also irony when the soviet guy said something about the Kanamit wasn’t right. Nobody wanted to believe or take him seriously because he was from Russia. It also didn’t help that in the 1950s, the nations didn’t trust one another. He claimed they weren’t telling the truth. The lie detectors didn’t detect one lie.

The Kanamit were being honest, just not to the full extent. Grigori kept digging and got his hands on a Kanamit handbook. Over time he decided on the first paragraph and found out it wasn’t a book on how to help mankind. It was a book on how to cook them.

Another example is how the Kanamit is described. They were short and had thick brown-gray hair all over their plump bodies. They had snout-like noses and tiny eyes. Three fingers on each hand.  They basically looked like pigs. They come to earth and resolve all the fighting going on. The Kanamit wanted to better the human race. Make them strong and healthy. Cure diseases and cancer. In all reality, they just wanted humans at their best to eat them. It’s very ironic how beings who look like what we eat help better the human race. Only to eat us in return.