IRONY OF SITUATION

This form of irony can occur in life as well as literature: a person or character performs an action with a definite intention but the outcome turns out to have an opposite and significant effect. It produces a sense of "ouch" in the observer, such as when someone superstitious steps into the road to avoid the bad luck following walking under a ladder and is then knocked down. There is often a feeling that the result is fated although it can be comic or tragic. In Jane Austen's Emma, Emma persuades her friend Harriet Smith to look in a higher social rank to find a marriage partner and Harriet, because of this, chooses Mr Knightley, thus making Emma realise that she herself loves him.

IRONY

Irony is a wide term which refers to a tone created by discrepancy and may be simplified into three basic modes:
1) an intention has an unexpected outcome; 2)  words do not mean what they say; 3) a character in a play says something which we know to be misguided or wrong. It always involves a twist which we feel to be significant and may be either comic or tragic
These are known as: 1) irony of situation; 2) verbal irony;
3) dramatic irony. All can produce a sense of satisfaction in the reader or member of the audience who feels sufficiently intelligent to have perceived its use.
I intend to deal with each separately over the next couple of weeks.