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Most people understand what irony is – whether they can always recognize it when they see it, is another subject altogether. Or, actually… it isn’t. This is precisely our topic today, only from a writer’s perspective: How to successfully include irony in your fiction, in a way that you can help the audience understand it.

Having said that, there’s a limit to what an author can do to help their audience. Some people won’t get it no matter what you do. Irony, in particular, is harder to get than a simple explanation of how something works or why.

The reason, as we’ll see in more detail below, is that irony heavily relies on cultural background information. And irony in fiction is an even more complicated matter, as it might overlap with other non-literal meanings and symbolical elements.

Irony: The Basics

Every basic outline of a subject usually starts with definitions. As I said above, most people understand what irony is: generally, using an expression that signifies one thing, when actually the intended meaning is the exact opposite.

For example, imagine you’re at a party and you feel bored out of your mind. Someone comes and asks you: “Are you having a good time?”

And you reply: “Fantastic! Brilliant! This is the best time I’ve ever had in my life!”

Notice the exaggeration. This is indeed one of the markers of irony. If you instead replied: “Yeah”, your comment might (or might not) be conceived as dishonest, depending on your tone of voice, but it would not be seen as ironic – unless you also expressed an exaggerated expression of joy.

But this is only a basic, rather linguistic approach to irony. When it comes to irony in fiction, things become more complicated.

Irony in Fiction: Purposes

There are two ways we use irony in fiction. The first is with a comic intent, the other with a tragic one. As we will see, both rely on the same factor: the audience knows something that the characters involved do not.

Irony with a Comic Intent

Broadly, irony can be used to instigate a comic reaction when the author places characters in a situation without offering them sufficient knowledge – which, crucially, the audience possesses. Many jokes rely on this strategy, so let’s see an example.

Jesus and the disciples have just finished the Last Supper. As they’re enjoying the last drops of wine, the check arrives. Jesus takes a look, and sweat begins to form on his forehead.
“Lads,” he says with an awkward smile, “it seems I don’t have any money. Peter, would you please?”
And so, Peter takes a look himself. But, seeing the amount, he also feels horrified and gives the check to Matthew.
From Matthew to James, from James to John, and so on… Everyone forwards it to the next, until it reaches the end of the table and Judas.
He takes a look at the check, then he turns and says, angrily: “You idiots! Why did you order so much wine? Where am I gonna find thirty pieces of silver now?”

This is not funny from within the system. In other words, it’s not funny if you were one of the people present in the scene. But it is funny from the audience’s perspective, because of the irony involved: Our cultural knowledge of the story reveals the importance of the thirty pieces of silver.

Irony with a Tragic Intent

Using irony in fiction with a tragic intent in mind is not all that different. Indeed, sometimes the only thing that matters is the general context of the story.

In our example above, the “story” (the joke) is the context. That is to say, although the joke relies on our cultural knowledge of the Last Supper to function, there is no other context within the story. It’s a joke, and the language deployed to narrate it is consistent with hilarity and mirth.

To compare, let’s take an imaginary example: Let’s assume you’ve picked up a literary-fiction novel (hence, you’re already within a tragic framework) and you soon find out that, say, the wife of the protagonist is cheating on him with his best friend. You, as the reader, are aware of it. The wife and the friend are, self-evidently, also aware of it. Neighbors and coworkers might be aware of it. But the protagonist is not.

Now, imagine that the novel advances with the protagonist acting and thinking in a way that expresses his unconditional love for his wife. He tells everyone how much she means to him, and how his life would be miserable without her.

The story – which, indeed, is a pretty usual set-up for similar plots – is based almost entirely on this element of tragic irony, which is the lack of knowledge regarding a crucial piece of information.

Irony in Fiction: The Cultural Background

I’ve referred to the cultural background a few times. I’ve mentioned how irony in fiction heavily relies on cultural background information, the absence of which might spoil the effect.

But what does that mean?

This is easier to understand with the Last Supper joke, above. It relies not just heavily, but entirely on the reader’s cultural knowledge of Christian theology. Most people brought up in Western countries, whether religious or not, should have no problem spotting the irony, as well as “getting” the joke.

But can you imagine telling this story to, say, an old man in a small Chinese village, who has never traveled more than 20 miles from the place he was born?

To such an audience, it would be a story of a group of men who had supper at a restaurant (?) but now can’t afford to pay. It’s neither funny nor particularly sense-making as a storyCan you guess why?
What is the element missing from such a story (even without considering cultural knowledge)?
See this article to get a hint.. Certainly, there is no discernible irony.

Are there Cases of Irony in Fiction that Work without Cultural Background?

The answer to this question is far trickier than what you may think. Let’s take the other example I used, the cheating wife. At first, you might be tempted to say that there’s no cultural background needed to understand the irony involved.

But is it really so?

Assume an audience that, for one reason or another, has no concept of marital infidelity. Let’s say that it’s a polyamorous community; a tribe, or a small ethnic group such as the Mosuo.

How do you explain the story of this (imaginary) novel to such an audience? The way a Chinese old man doesn’t understand comic irony in the Last Supper joke, a Mosuo woman has little or no concept of infidelity. At best, she could perhaps vicariously try to understand it as dishonesty of some sort. Still, the experience would be assumingly far more diluted compared to the one a Western reader would have.

That is not to say that there are no examples of irony in fiction that can work without cultural background. There are concepts wide enough to transcend culture and even time; love and hate, joy and sadness, or the fear of deathEven then you could feasibly find individual people who have no concept of love (say, a psychopath), or are not afraid of death (say, a Zen master)..

Therefore, it’s a matter of establishing the trade-off point between specificity and audience reception—a wide enough concept is understood by more readers, but its impact might be diluted. Ultimately, in most cases, authors place a certain abstract threshold and say “I guess most people will get this”.

Which brings us to the final but perhaps most crucial point.

As an Author, How Do You Write Irony?

Or, to continue from the previous section, how do you establish that trade-off point? To a certain extent, it depends on your own intentions and expectations. Are you an artist or a writer? Do you care about audience reception or not?

To put it another way, if you don’t care whether the audience will “get it” or not, then write irony the way you understand it. That’s what I do, that’s what I would advocate if what’s important to you is your own work.

But not all writers operate like that.

Most authors – indeed a very significant majority – always have an eye on the audience; what the audience likes, what the audience expects. In that context, you should write irony in a way that it strikes a balance.

It should be obvious enough to the average reader of your audience group (good luck establishing that), but not so simplistic that it harms instead of helping your creative process.

If you write, say, romance, then your audience probably consists of middle-age, (lower) middle-class Western women. They should be able to understand irony related to the Last Supper or infidelity (just referring to the examples of this post).

On the other hand, such an audience might have a hard time understanding the irony involved in a quantum physics professor who has lost his cat and doesn’t know if it’s alive or dead.

The choice is up to you – that’s the good news, as well as the bad!