Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

11.5 Why use irony?
Unit 11 Irony
Section 3 Attributing meaning

It is possible for us to say something that we do not believe to be true, and by so doing to communicate a rich range of meanings that we do believe to be true. This is the basis for verbal irony as a communicative practice.

Irony might, for example, be used to express a particular world view that we can never really be certain in our knowledge and beliefs. Even the simplest and most straightforward ironies (as in the Austen text cited earlier) demonstrate the existence of incorrect certainties; and more complex ironies such as those found in Shelley’s poem can create a sense of the impossibility of being certain of anything.

While irony can destabilize, it can also have stabilizing functions. Thus Austen uses irony to confirm the authority of a particular voice (the narrator’s own voice) as the voice of truth. Furthermore, because irony requires the reader to bring a certain kind of background knowledge to the text in order to make sense of it, irony can require the reader to make certain assumptions in order to interpret the text: in order to understand Austen’s first sentence we are forced to take on a set of attitudes towards women, men, marriage and society, which the novel will then manipulate.