The novel 1984, by George Orwell, has many examples of irony
throughout it. The two major types of irony: verbal irony and
situation irony, are demonstrated again and again in this novel.
In the following essay I will discuss these types of ironies and
give examples of each from the book. The first type of irony is
verbal irony, in which a person says or does something one way,
but the true meaning is the opposite. One of the first example
of this irony is discovered when the main character, Winston
Smith, uses the “Memory hole” to deposit things — one would
think that this would be where things are remembered (“Memory”),
but it’s actually an incinerator. The next example of irony
comes when you learn about the departments of Government in
Oceania. The Ministry of Truth is actually the maker of lies for
the history books, the Ministry of Love discourages love, and
the Ministry of Peace is actually quite violent. The final
example of verbal Irony can be seen in the name of the leader of
Oceania, “Big Brother.”