An image of the cartoon character Marge Simpson. In this image she is holding two bags of groceries with a happy look on her face.

Source: Kwik-E-Mart, stgermh, Flickr

An image of the cartoon character Lisa Simpson. In this image she has an angry look on her face.

Source: Source: o_0, Xystance, Flickr

You are exposed to verbal irony and sarcasm daily in conversation, music, comic routines, sitcoms, and many other forms. For example, Lisa Simpson says to her mother Marge, “I’m proud of you, Mom. You’re like Christopher Columbus. You discovered something millions of people knew about before you.” Lisa isn’t really “proud” of her mother. She is gently mocking her. You can’t “discover” something that millions of others already know. The irony of her statement depends on the fact that although the Americas were unknown to Europeans when Columbus discovered them, millions of Native Americans already lived there.

The chart below summarizes two kinds of verbal irony, understatement and overstatement.

Type of Irony	Function	Example
Understatement	Understatement minimizes the nature of something.	“It was a pretty good game,” he said, describing the no-hitter.
Overstatement	Overstatement exaggerates the nature of something.	Waiting in the cafeteria line, she said, “There are a million people ahead of us.”

In one of his greatest hits, country singer and songwriter Kenny Rogers uses verbal irony to emphasize the seriousness of a situation. In his song “Lucille,” a wife has left her husband at a particularly trying time. The song’s lyrics repeat and elaborate on the husband’s predicament in an understated manner. See if you can find the understatement in these lyrics.

A photograph of several children, girls and boys, working on a farm. Behind them is a draft horse hitched to a wagon.

Source: The working holiday at Paddock Wood, theirhistory, Flickr

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille,
With four hungry children and a crop in the field.
I’ve had some bad times,
Lived through some sad times,
This time the hurtin’ won’t heal.
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

If you perceived “a fine time” as Rogers’s understatement, you are well on your way to understanding verbal irony. It is not “a fine time” for Lucille to leave him because there are “four hungry children” to be fed and crops that need to be harvested.

The key words that make Rogers’s song ironic are “a fine time.” If we heard Rogers sing this song, his tone, gestures, and facial expressions might help us recognize the difference between the words and actual situation. Rogers states that Lucille has “picked a fine time to leave,” but it’s actually a horrible time.

Now let’s look at a poem that illustrates an ironic tone. Remember that the speaker does not intend to be taken literally when using verbal irony. Instead, there is a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.

Source: Grass-covered remains of an ancient cairn –
geograph.org.uk – 1315163, Lairich Rig Wikimedia

Grass

by Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

In “Grass,” Carl Sandburg mentions five famous battles. Study the chart below to help you interpret the irony in the speaker’s tone. Keep in mind that Sandburg did not choose these battles randomly. What point is he trying to make?

Battle/War	Dates	Casualties
Austerlitz/Napoleonic wars	1805	25,000
Waterloo/Napoleonic wars	1815	60,000
Gettysburg/Civil War	1863	45,000–50,000
Ypres/site of three World War I battles	1914–1917	850,000
Verdun/World War I	1916	700,000

Now that you have studied the chart, draw some conclusions about the speaker’s ironic tone in “Grass.”

1. Read the poem again, especially the first stanza. Who is the speaker in this poem?

a. The wars’ casualties

Try again.

b. The train conductor

Try again.

c. The grass

Correct! Sandburg introduces us to the grass, which speaks ironically of the “work” it does “cover[ing] all,” in reference to the dead bodies. The tragedy of war and the suffering it causes are unspoken in the poem.

2. The speaker issues a sort of command to those who bury the bodies: “pile the bodies high” and “shovel them under.” Whom is the speaker addressing?

a. The passengers on the train

Try again.

b. The train conductor who takes mourners to the battlefields where their loved ones died

Try again.

c. The gravediggers who bury the dead, battle after battle throughout history

Correct! The gravediggers are instructed to “pile the bodies high and shovel them under,” possibly in mass graves. Treating the bodies like common objects, as the grass does, is ironic because people’s bodies should be treated with reverence.

3. The allusions to battle appear in chronological order from 1805 to 1917. Sandburg’s main purpose for introducing the battles in order is to—

a. demonstrate his knowledge of military history

Try again.

b. show that human beings forget the tragedies of war and continue to make the same mistakes

Correct! Sandburg introduces the battles chronologically to support the unspoken purpose of the poem: to remind the reader that warfare causes great losses in lives but shows no signs of stopping.

c. encourage men and women everywhere to honor those who gave their lives in these battles

Try again.

4. The speaker’s repetition of “pile the bodies high” and “pile them high” creates a tone that reflects—

a. frustration with human beings’ inability to learn from their mistakes

Correct! The grass is frustrated that it must cover the disastrous actions of human beings at Austerlitz, Waterloo, and so on, again and again.

b. cheerful willingness to get the work done

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c. impassioned rage toward the work of having to “cover all”

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5. The passengers’ questions (“What place is this?” “Where are we now?”) suggest that—

a. human beings tend to forget even the bloodiest and most horrendous places of war

Correct! The passengers’ confusion about their whereabouts, coupled with the speaker’s reference to the passage of time (“two years, ten years”), indicates that humans forget all too quickly about the immense loss of life during war.

b. the passengers are keenly interested in history

Try again.

c. the passengers are confused and worried that they don’t have enough time to reach their destinations

Try again.

In “Grass,” Sandburg’s speaker says one thing but means another. The speaker uses irony to admonish human beings for slaughtering one another over and over again in recurring wars and leaving nature (the grass) to cover up the casualties.

Let’s go back to Lisa Simpson at the beginning of this section. Her tone is sarcastic.Sarcasm is verbal irony that is generally used to taunt someone or belittle something. Although Lisa is sarcastic and only pretends to praise her mother, her tone is not so harsh that it could be described as condemning her mother.

A poster showing Brian Griffin, the dog form the cartoon Family Guy. He is saying, “Sarcasm is just another free service I offer.”

Source: Family Guy Sarcasm Shirt Up Close, bamalibrarylady, Flickr

Homer Simpson, Lisa's dad, is also famous for his sarcasm: “Oh no! Now who will sell oranges on the off-ramp?” (He says this in response to Lisa's comment that Bart is throwing away his future).

While the terms “verbal irony” and “sarcasm” are sometimes used interchangeably, not all verbal irony is sarcastic. The authors of A Handbook to Literature claim that verbal irony “is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but . . . is usually less harsh.”