Irony

Irony is defined in the dictionary as "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected".I have always been fascinated by examples of situational irony because it fits perfectly with the sayings "Life is what actually happens to you while you sit there planning" and "Man plans while God laughs".

Here are three of my personal favorites:

1. One day in 1974 I awoke to learn that a trapeze artist named Phillipe Petit had managed to string a wire between the towers of the World Trade Center and was walking with a pole between the twin towers without a net or other safety device! The ground was 1350 feet below but he acted like he was having a good time, which in fact he was. It turned out that he wasn't crazy or demented, just a very skilled young trapeze artist from France with lots of confidence. The people watching him out of their windows in the World Trade Center would surely have considered him crazy and, like me, wouldn't have traded places with him for anything in the world. Comparing their respective positions, the people inside would have considered themselves safe and Petit on the verge of death. The supreme irony here is that, unbelievably and tragically, he was safe and they were the ones actually in danger, as the subsequent events of 9/11 demonstrated. I read not so long ago in a follow-up article in the New York Times that Petit is today living happy and healthy in upstate New York.

2. For many years I engaged in a variety of physical activities. These included boxing lessons, skiing, ice skating, bike riding, roller skating, jogging, sledding, swimming, weight training, hiking, surfing, and training for and running the Boston Marathon. None of these activities ever resulted in any injuries. The irony here is that, when all I did one day was to let the family dog run off his leash, the dog came running back in response to my call and crashed into me. The result was a broken leg and torn ligaments which required a cast and many weeks of hobbling around on crutches. In light of all my previous potentially dangerous activities, I never imagined that my downfall would occur while taking a slow morning walk on a totally flat and grassy meadow in a public park in Brooklyn.

3. I once worked for a lawyer who graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School and got to clerk at the US Supreme Court for Justice Felix Frankfurter. Thereafter he went to work at a top law firm now known as Dewey & Leboeuf. They denied him a partnership and he was forced to seek work elsewhere. This must have been a great shock and disappointment to him. Recently, Dewey & Leboeuf declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Retired partners have undoubtedly lost their entire pensions. The firm he transferred to is doing just fine.

I end with an example used by the dictionary writer to illustrate situational irony. He pointed out that the bullets fired at President Reagan in an assassination attempt actually missed their target. It was only a bullet that ricoched off the door to tne limousine, which was there to protect the president, that caused him to nearly lose his life.