1. “TYPES OF IRONY IN DR. FAUSTUS”
Rayat Shikshan Sanstha’s S. M. JOSHI COLLEGE Hadapsar, Pune – English Department M. A. Part – 2 Sem. – 3 Paper Name : 3.4 DRAMA IN ENGLISH
“TYPES OF IRONY IN DR. FAUSTUS”
Presented By : MR.SURESH BHOSALE

2. INTRODUCTION :
Irony is a literary technique & rhetoric device that has been used for many years in speech, art and everyday life. Although irony has been used for a long time, there hasn’t been an exact definition of irony. There have been hundreds of definitions suggested over the years, however, a general consensus is that:
Irony is a literary device where the chosen words are intentionally used to indicate a meaning other than the literal one. Irony is often mistaken for sarcasm. Sarcasm is actually a form of verbal irony, but sarcasm is intentionally insulting. When you say, "Oh, great" after your drink has spilled all over your expensive new clothes, you don't actually mean that the incident is positive. Here, using the word 'great' ironically indicates a higher negative implication, even though the wording is positive.
Irony is a figure of speech which is a contradiction or incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs.
Most of the definitions of irony are something along these lines, though there is often disagreement about the specific meaning of this term.

3. Breaking Down 3 Types of Irony in Drama
Verbal Irony
The use of words to mean something different than what they appear to mean.
Situational Irony
The difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.
Dramatic Irony
When the audience is more aware of what is happening than a character.

4. There are Three Types of Irony :
1. Verbal Irony
Verbal irony is the use of words to mean something different from what a person actually says.
The main feature of verbal irony that sets it apart from the other different types of irony is that it is used by a speaker intentionally. It occurs in a conversation where a person aims to be understood as meaning something different to what his or her words literally mean.
Examples of verbal irony include:
1. “Thanks for the ticket officer you just made my day!” “I can’t wait to read the seven hundred page report.”
The above examples show how irony is used to show someone’s frustration or disappointment.
There are two types of verbal irony:
Overstatement – When a person exaggerates the character of something. Understatement – When a person undermines the character of something.

5. Verbal Irony in Dr.Faustus
There is a dreadful irony pervading Doctor Faustus, and this irony operates at the verbal level.
When Dr. Faustus first summons Mephistophilis, it is his own accord. Mephistophilis informs Faustus that "when devils hear a human being ready to renounce the scriptures and his Saviour Christ, they fly to him in hope to get his glorious soul”
Later, when Faustus calls upon Christ, it is Lucifer and Beelzebub who come to him in the final stage.
Faustus‟ rapturous speech at the appearance of Helen is shot through with ironic meanings not intended by Faustus, reminding us that this visions is an illusion and an evil spirit.
In the final soliloquy Faustus‟ desperation is expressed with a powerful urgency and it is clothed in imagery which both contracts and extends the dimensions of time and space.
Faustus mocks religion by using religious jargon to describe the supernatural, for example, “these metaphysics of magicians/And necromantic books are heavenly” (1.1, 49-50), which is ironic because he refers to the works of the devil to be “heavenly”. 

6. 2. Situational Irony
It involves a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.
Situational irony occurs when the exact opposite of what is meant to happen, happens.
An example would be when someone buys a gun to protect himself, but the same gun is used by another individual to injure him. One would expect that the gun would keep him safe, but it has actually caused him injury.
There is however a difference between situational irony and coincidence or bad luck.
When someone washes his car and it rains, that is just bad luck; nothing led him or her to think that it would not rain. However, when a TV weather presenter gets caught in an unexpected storm, it is ironic because he or she is expected to know the exact weather changes.
For situational irony to occur there has to be something that leads a person to think that a particular event or situation is unlikely happen.

7. Situational Irony in Dr.Faustus
Situational Irony occurs when Faustus summons Mephistophilis, a demon who is servant to Lucifer. In exchange for twenty four years of power, honor and earthly riches, Faustus aims to sell his soul to Lucifer. The Good Angel attempts to dissuade him from such a disastrous course of action, but the bad Angel tells him that all his fears are just inconsequential nuisances in his quest for self-fulfillment.
Faustus falsely believes that he will never be called to account for deadly decision as he believes that hell is myth; however, we readers know that the Good Angel is actually right .
Another example of Situational Irony comes in the final stages of the play when Faustus gives way to despair instead repenting. He begs for more time from the devils and asks Mephistophilis to summon Helen of troy for the scholars, thinking that this will buy him the time he needs . He would rather have a dalliance with fantastically conjured up images than repent his sins.
In the end Faustus who wished to attain ultimate power and wealth, instead his fate is sealed with a most unfortunate ending : two scholars eventually find his horribly mutilated and dismembered body. He loses his soul to Lucifer.
Faustus chose magic because he saw magic limitless possibilities, to illustrate that what Faustus thought could help him conquer the world only degrades and destroys him. Marlowe creates this irony in the rebelling nature of Doctor Faustus to perhaps depict the vacillating nature of man.

8. The first scene that introduces the protagonist opens in the setting of a study room, emphasizing Faustus as a respectable scholar with the honorary name of a doctor. Typically, an intellectual would advocate and commend the exalted academia like medicine and law. Yet Faustus, like an adept rhetoric, criticizes the high professions of logic, physics, law and theology, cites reputable scholars of the respective discipline, and uses Latin quotations for each field to reflect his intelligence, such as Aristotle’s logic in Analytics (1.1, 6), Galen’s physics (1.1, 12-3), Justinian law (1.1, 25-31) and theology in Jerome’s Bible (1.1, 36). Instead the doctor turns to magic, a forbidden and ridiculed art in medieval times. He crowns magic at the top of intellectual disciplines, which implies that his wisdom outstretches all earthly knowledge into the non-existential realm, reflecting his pride and naivety.

9. There are three stages of dramatic irony:
Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows a key piece of information that a character in a play, movie or novel does not. This is the type of irony that makes us yell, “DON’T GO IN THERE!!” during a scary movie. Dramatic irony is huge in Shakespeare’s tragedies, most famously in Othello and Romeo and Juliet.
This type of irony is popular in works of art such as movies, books, poems and plays.
There are three stages of dramatic irony:
Installation – audience is informed of something the character does not know about Exploitation – using this information to develop curiosity among the audience Resolution – what happens when the character finally finds out what is going on?
An example of dramatic irony is in a movie where a detective does not know that the criminal responsible for the crimes in the city is his partner. The audience however is already aware of this fact and waits anxiously to know what will happen once the character finds out what they already know.

10. Dramatic Irony in Dr.Faustus
When Faustus asks for a wife after he seals the deal with his own blood, the devils tell him that the option of holy matrimony is now beyond his reach. Instead, they send him a succession of prostitutes for his sexual enjoyment. In the mean time, Beelzebub, Lucifer and Mephistophilis entertain him with absurd and entertaining manifestation of the seven deadly scenes. This is dramatic irony, where the reader knows something the character does not seem to be aware of : the reader knows that the devils want to lure Faustus into a false sense of security.
When Faustus continually questions Mephistophilis about the universe and the primary concept of life but is constantly rebuffed with the admonishment ‘to think on hell’. We know this is another way lull Faustus into deeper and deeper indiscretions.
Moving astray from intellectual studies towards the irrational and censored ‘black arts’ easily foreshadows the tragic downfall of Faustus; yet Faustus’ naivety and ignorance of his ultimate end shapes an irony that only the audience and the Chorus can perceive, generating an emotional response within the audience and readers that perhaps warns them against the greed for excessive possession including knowledge and control.
The dramatic irony is deftly interwoven as Dr. Faustus keeps on acting on his whims bringing his own doom which is very clear to the reader but Faustus himself is oblivious to it. At the end of twenty-four years, he is sent to hell.

11. The prime irony of the play is the that of the soul of the leading character of Dr. Faustus himself, who is in hold of the devil who claims to be at his service 24*7. Faustus is in a diametrically opposite thought of being the master of the world, and takes pride in possessing magical powers. And in doing so, he is about to sign a pact with the devil, which would further lead him towards doom. Besides that, his interpretation of the biblical text's are ironical. It can be seen in the following line " The reward of sin is death Why then, we must sin, and consequently die". He also misses the significance of repentance and the magnanimity of God, for he forgives. The entire play focuses on the divine knowledge that Faustus intends to attain, but in reality it is worthless and he has attained nothing but shallowness and hollowness.
We may also treat Mephistophilis as a symbol of dramatic irony in the play . Having bitter experiences of hell as a fallen angel, Mephistophilis warns Faustus of the evils of necromancy and the suffering of hell. But Faustus with his pride and ambition turns a deaf ear for all this, shuns the path of virtue and dreams of becoming ‘as great Lucifer’ or to be as powerful.
Thus, Mephistophilis is made the symbol of dramatic irony that intensifies the tragic appeal of this great drama.

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