On Irony

I'm taking a bit of a step away from economics for a while, waiting for inspiration to strike. So I decided to re-read a book (for the first time). The  re-reading of 'Sophie's world' was interesting, because the things I found engaging on the first read hardly caught my attention and instead I found myself engaged in some parts of the book I hardly remember reading the first time. The part that gripped me this time was the whole sub-plot with Alberto and Sophie, especially towards the end when the whole story becomes ironic.

I was first exposed to irony in the short stories of O' Henry, particularly 'The Gift of the Magi'. The teacher explained it along the lines of God/destiny playing a practical joke. This has been my benchmark definition. But in Sophie's world, the philosopher Alberto mentions at a point in the book that the events that were unfolding was an example of irony which challenged my existing understanding of the idea.

So what really is irony? It's really hard to define. I think there are two ways of looking at it. Firstly, it can be viewed as some kind of information asymmetry, or mutual lack of information that proves critical (for example, the story mentioned above). This is especially true for dramatic irony or tragic irony. On the other hand, as I discovered on reading the book, it can be viewed as something which evokes awareness. This made me look at things which I didn't consider ironic earlier, a bit closer.

I'll use an example - A Dylan song:  I shall be free No. 10. The song rambles on about random stuff about some person without much structure or point. Then at the end he sings

Now you're probably wondering by now

Just what this song is all about

What's probably got you baffled more

Is what this thing here is for. 

(Referring to a particular kind of strumming he was using throughout the song)

It's nothing

It's something I learned over in England

So, while your listening to the song your going along with the lyrics, figuring out the story, taking everything else for granted. But the moment you hear the last part, you suddenly become aware. You become aware that your listening to a song, that the song has a peculiar strumming style etc. In other words, your attention gets diverted from the content to the medium. 

The movie, Annie Hall is another expample. There are scenes when things are happening in the background but Woody Allen converses directly with the audience, breaking out of the story, making the audience aware that they are watching a movie. When the content breaks out or away, that is when the audience becomes aware. In art, any kind of absurdity would also evoke the same reaction and so even the magic realism of Rushdie or Marquez can be looked at as having used irony to highlight the theme of the story.

Douglas Hofstadter, in GEB, refers to this kind of irony as a strange-loop (or self-reference) and claims that once there is self-reference within a system of any kind (mathematical or otherwise), the system has developed its own consciousness. Godel's Incompleteness theorem follows the laws of a mathematical system in the proof and concludes something about the system itself. There is irony in the theorem. But does that make the system that generated the irony conscious? The author claims that a strange-loop is is an attempt by a system to percieve reality outside the confines of its role and hence it constitutes consciousness.

There really is no point to this post. Just a few observations. So I'll leave you with an Escher picture.