Aim: How can we analyze the structure of irony in “Lord of the Flies” and its significance to the work as a whole?
As the bell rang, Ms. Peterson announced a few details that we should know about the upcoming “Lord of the Flies” exam. She told us that we needed to bring #2 pencils, since this will be a Scantron. Additionally, once we get the scantron and start the exam, we needed to put a slash across each of our answers on the scantron, so that if the scantron makes a mistake or glitches out, marking something wrong, Ms. Peterson will know what answer we had put originally and we wouldn’t be able to change it up.
After this little speech we had a Do Now. This Do Now was a Pair Share. We needed to decide if in our culture, we tend to value and appreciate rational thought. How does this apply to Piggy’s reaction to Simon’s death? How is relying on rationality ironic in this circumstance?
Once each group had a few minutes to talk about the Do Now, we had a class discussion. Group 5 started the discussion by saying that Piggy said it was an accident. Now the question that arose is if this is rationalizing or denial of the situation. As a class we decided it was denial. Marianna said that Ralph was more rationalizing it then Piggy. Ben said Ralph thinks it was murder.
For the second question in this Do Now, Ahmad started the discussion by saying that the person who didn’t kill someone is denying it, trying to make up excuses, while the person who did it is flat out saying he did it.
Now we moved on to reading the next slide.
Yanna started to read half of it, and Charith continued with the second half.
Irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
Verbal irony: Verbal irony occurs when a speaker speaks something contradictory to what he intends to say.
Dramatic irony: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play.
Irony of situation: irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected.
Cosmic irony: Cosmic irony occurs when a higher power (e.g., God, fate, the Universe) intervenes to create an ironic situation.
Ms. Peterson said that we have not seen cosmic irony yet.
One irony that we see in the book is that the island is in the shape of a boat.
The conversation about irony continues with us listening to a song by Alanis Morissette called “Irony”.
This song gave multiple good examples of the usage of irony.
After listening to the song, we once again had a group discussion, discussing the ironies in the song, debating if they are ironic or just luck.
Of course, after the group discussion we had a whole class discussion. Charith started the discussion by saying the song as a whole was an irony, a situational irony. He gave an example of when the old man turned 98, he won the lottery. This was ironic since the old man wouldn’t really be able to do much with this money that he won, since he is close to dying. Usually, when people win money, they like to spend it and share it around, with benefit for the future.
Yanna said it wasn’t ironic, instead she said it was more like bad luck. She said that during the chorus multiple situations were stated such as “rain on a wedding day” and “paid for a free ride”, which show bad luck. Ms. Peterson gave an example to the class which was how someone who she knows got married on 9/11. In this case it wasn’t ironic because it was planned out from a while ago, and things changing to the bad side was solely bad luck.
Next, Ms. Peterson showed a few images with irony in them, such as the Mario brothers playing Mario kart games. This helped us better understand the concept of irony.
The last thing we did in class was group work.
We needed to answer three questions together with our group.
At the beginning of chapter 10, who is right, Ralph or Piggy?
Why does Samneric’s fight cause Piggy distress?
In this novel about chiefs and leaders - are there any heroes? Is this ironic?
Ahmad started to answer the first question, once the whole class started to discuss collectively. He said that both are correct because Piggy didn’t do anything. Crystal said that Ralph is correct because Piggy thinks that savagery swallowed all of them up and that it wasn’t his fault.
For the second question, Ben started to answer. He said that Samneric's fight caused Piggy distress because the last time when Piggy saw people fight, Simon died. Therefore, seeing the fight, Piggy was scared someone would die again.
Reflection: Today’s lesson helped me understand the concept of irony much better than I did before. I learned that irony can and has been applied to so many elements in daily life. I learned that there is not just one type of irony, but there are 5 different kinds. As we are reading “Lord Of The Flies”, we went over how there is irony in this book too. Before this lesson, I read the book, not thinking of such a literary device, since this book didn’t seem like one that would have it. Surprisingly enough, it did, and it had a lot of irony. The class discussion also helped me better understand how irony could be applied, as we were talking about the ways it was used in the book. This lesson was very important for our lives, as it helped me (us) understand how irony doesn’t only have to be something funny, it could definitely be in a serious situation, which i didn’t know. Overall, this lesson taught me, personally, how to apply, understand, and spot the usage of irony in not only literary works, but also daily lives. Not knowing about this literary device would really affect me negatively in the future.
Some more examples of irony:
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