Isn't it ironic?

Ironic - Alanis Morissette


1. Read and listen to Alanis Morrissette´s song Ironic. Identify as many ironies as you can and classify them. Are they verbal, situational, dramatic or understatements? You can just copy and paste extracts from the lyrics and write your classification next to each of them.


Understatement Ironies:
 > Isn't it ironic, don't you think?
 > A little too ironic, and yeah I really do think


Situational Ironies:
 > An old man turned ninety-eight. He won the lottery and died the next day
 > It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
 > It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
 > It's like rain on your wedding day
 > It's a free ride when you've already paid
 > It's the good advice that you just didn't take
 > Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly [...]And as the plane crashed down he thought
 > "Well, isn't this nice."
 > A traffic jam when you're already late
 > A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
 > It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife
 > It's meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife


2. Which do you think is the most ironic of them all? Why?
"Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly. He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye. He waited his whole damn life to take that flight. And as the plane crashed down he thought "Well, isn't this nice."
In my opinion, this is the most ironic of all because is talking about a man that is afraid to fly, and ironically, the day in which he deides to front his tremour, the flight crashes down.


3. What do you think is the significance of all these ironies in this song? Do you think the songwriter is...
a) trying to show humor?
b) showing anger or fierce criticism?
c) showing how sad some situations are?

In my opinion, the songwriter is showing how sad some situations are because most of this situations are tragic or show a kind of unfareness in what happen on the people of the song.