A fire station burns down. A marriage counselor gets divorced. A traffic cop gets a ticket. Situational irony is an outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected. It is the opposite of what you would predict.

Situational irony is not just bad luck. It requires a mismatch between expectation and reality. A rainstorm on your wedding day is unfortunate, not ironic. A rainstorm on your wedding day when you chose the date because it was the driest month of the year—that is ironic. The term is often confused with dramatic irony (when the audience knows something a character does not) and verbal irony (when someone says the opposite of what they mean). Situational irony is a favorite tool of storytellers. O. Henry built entire stories around it. It can be comic, tragic, or simply unsettling.

Examples

• A fire station burning down
• A marriage counselor getting divorced
• A traffic cop receiving a ticket
• A lifeguard drowning