9.25.14+and+9.26.14

Choice Reading Time

Class brainstorm: "Museum Indians" metaphors--unpacking meaning P.1: Vocabulary: Add these terms to your journal

When an author references another work of literature, historical event, historical figure, or a specific place without explanation or detail. The goal of allusion is to provide additional meaning/context to their work through the comparison the reference creates. EX: “Chocolate was his Achilles’ heel.” “She was being a total Scrooge.” “He/she’s the Michael Jordan of his/her generation.” “He/she was straight out of a Portlandia skit.” “They could have walked right out of the pages of The Great Gatsby.”
 * Allusion:**

Definition: Contrast between expectation and reality—between what’s said and what is really meant, between what is expected to happen and what really happens, or between what appears to be true and what is really true.
 * Irony:**

Three common types :
 * Verbal irony:** saying something when one means something completely different. Character toasting the health of an unsuspecting victim. (Sarcasm can be ironic, but it’s all about understanding/intent—song “Ironic” is not ironic…)


 * Situational irony:** contrast between what would seem appropriate and what really happens or when there is a contradiction between what we expect to happen and what really takes place. Mercutio’s death in R and J.


 * Dramatic irony:** When the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know. We know that Daisy and Gatsby are having an affair and Tom doesn’t.

Some more examples: Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father’s it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance: George Carlin [] Some visual examples:
 * If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony.
 * If a Kurd, after surviving bloody battle with Saddam Hussein’s army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.


 * [[image:https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/25nVK-XQMkjpc7Q2OFkglis_cAJMg9J7gAFpkHB42uOYcO9nkeLn_6cjxKeDHfqMYJ9Z884uZ24YwQKXQvI41I00DjXn8aKLdBcQjhoS_GzBWMRfYnaOCr95hi7AkMAuYg align="center" caption="Nothing-Is-Written-In-Stone.jpg"]] ||
 * Nothing-Is-Written-In-Stone.jpg ||


 * [[image:https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/okuXYFgX-xjXAvn4vJETeF5mKLoFCCzNXbGRAXo3FziE9VRSd4WMgxR7o0_LEXJErEerBZAs-dWY8Vbb7XaTDx2MovBfNx4wGDc5pWRhrdkXTWhaRDRmVvoZSRFYrE6BPA align="center" caption="irony.jpg"]] ||
 * irony.jpg ||


 * [[image:https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/pVaQHs-ZifMZFKp6Wwe0xYGaWYAUs65yAnIgqF1R8hh_ct12y5hB5F2Na5567S8ukZeiB7HiVBx5MA41N9jbCq6GGiBpva7o-zGaYQumJAnhNEEO7IbgCDjhe4JKDeED5Q align="center" caption="situational_irony.gif"]] ||
 * situational_irony.gif ||


 * And then some humor… **
 * [[image:https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qpDi9G8mYar-EMtTOSST7IfnlP1TrJ4r2LkXak-1BvbkmAOAyMcImt6gpwyVYCUHxL2GriEbI3o1EvemmV7gwSdxh7IrZtQfrNmwibOTdUOSmacM9t8i6TtYEqxGdWW13A align="center" caption="irony6.jpg"]] ||
 * irony6.jpg ||

HW: Read "Evolution" by Sherman Alexie and highlight and annotate for examples of allusion, irony, and metaphor/symbol for Monday.