SOURCE: “Irony in Ionesco,” in French Literature Series, Vol. XIV, 1987, pp. 174-77.

In the following essay, Retford explores four categories of irony in The Lesson, The Bald Soprano, The Killer, and Victims of Duty, and asserts that Ionesco uses irony to reflect and world in flux and as a statement of his metaphysical sentiments that life is both tragic and comic.

Eugene Ionesco transmits an extreme awareness of the plight of contemporary man through an artistic act of defiance at the absurdity of existence. This note, using the four plays La Leçon. La Cantatrice Chauve, Tueur sans gages and Victimes du devoir, explores four categories of irony: Cosmic Irony, Personal Irony, the Irony of Systems, and Artistic Irony.

Cosmic Irony

Cosmic irony is a given in the Ionescian world. There is a metaphysical conflict which is productive of irony: on one hand, the endeavor of man to...