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Definition of Verbal Irony
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging outside and someone remarks "what... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean... read full definition
Verbal Irony
Explanation and Analysis—The Lottery:
The verbal irony at the heart of “The Lottery” is the fact that the cruel tradition of stoning a randomly selected community member to death is referred to as a “lottery.” Historically, the word “lottery” has been used to describe positive rituals in which the person who “wins” gets to leave with a sum of money or other such prize. The story's ritual, of course, is the exact opposite.
The lottery is also an example of situational irony, in the sense that readers don’t see it coming given the lighthearted way that the characters initially engage with it. Children joyfully collect piles of stones as if it were a game, and the adults likewise join the proceedings in a carefree manner, as seen in the following passage:
Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands.
Here the narrator describes how the men congregating on the town square for the lottery casually “speak of planting and rain, tractors and taxes,” and how the women “greet one another and exchange bits of gossip.” This all encourages readers to view the lottery as an unremarkable and ordinary experience, an assumption that is upended at the end of the story when Tessie Hutchinson is stoned to death. Jackson does note that the men “smiled rather than laughed” at each other’s jokes, signaling that something is “off,” but it is so subtle that readers may not initially pick up on the subtle underlying sense of unease or anticipation.
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