The irony of arguments

Irony, the use of contradicting language to express certain meanings, usually is a essential part in many stories and poetry. It takes the form of organization and vague sense. But when a more in depth analysis is performed, these ironic expressions are essential to the content of the written work as a whole. Take for example, John Donne’s “The Flea”, here, the poem describes a flea and perhaps an argument between two individuals. However, only one individual is really speaking in this continuous monologue. “The Flea” marks an ironic method of deceit from both the speaker’s side and the form of the entire work.

            The speaker of the poem alludes to the audience that he, only assuming that it’s a male in the early 17^th century, is trying to engage in some unconventional sexual act with another counterpart. “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead” (line 6, Donne). What’s ironic about the speaker’s statement to justify pre-martial sexual conduct is how a flea is used to relate to all of his arguments. Another issue is with line 6, the speaker clearly stated how by performing this unconventional sexual conduct would not result in sinning, shame from either side and effectively loss of maidenhead, which is another word for virginity. Reasonably speaking, the speaker already mentioned that the flea and his counterpart’s maidenhead is simply as insignificant, so in essence, the speaker negated his own argument by stating indirectly that one’s maidenhead is important. Especially when it was mentioned along with sin that it wouldn’t be of loss after the conduct.

            Deceit is a heavy element within this poem. As the speaker tries to convince a receiver to engage in some sexual misconduct, assuming it’s pre-martial sexual intercourse, he progressively uses certain arguments that are both deceitful in reason and also ironic in nature.  After the receiver supposedly kills the “flea”, the speaker counters by saying, “Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee” (lines 26-7).  The speaker is assuming that the receiver would eventually submit to the speaker’s demands as she has killed the bonding between them. The ironic nature is that there was no bonding to begin with. Since the female receiver seems to have rejected the speaker’s demand as evidenced from the speaker’s alternation in stanza 3, thus therefore no such bonding occur in any point of the poem. The speaker points the contrary to promote guilt in the speaker’s supposed actions. Moreover, this is an example of the level of deceit used along with ironic characteristics to convince the receiver into accepting the speaker’s wishes.

            The use of both irony and deceit to justify a violation of social protocol has made an almost convincing argument. The entire structure of the poem is well written and organized. Similar to the definition for irony, the poem follows a pattern, a form of organization. Each of the three stanzas holds nine lines. The organization occurs both in the external level and internal. Internal is the actual content of the poem. Each attempt and change in argument is what separates each stanza. However the last few lines of the second stanza is where the speaker’s arguments turn to blame. Thus the use of irony and deceit ultimately failed to convince or yet in this case, deceive the receiving individual.

           

Courtesy of youtube.com <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrJYwOhv9sg>

This episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation underlines the poetic use of irony and deceit. As our main protagonist Captain Picard attempts to act like he's once again a Borg, cybernetic beings who overtake individuals and add them into their collective, effectively eliminating individuality. Picard is doing so that he can see if the Borg they captured would react in a certain way. However what's striking is the Borg, whom claim to possess only a collective mind actually have individuality as they each have a "Designation". Ironically these seems to contradict all of what they stand for.

"YouTube - Picard and Hugh - Star Trek the next Generation." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Alessberg, 05 Dec. 07. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrJYwOhv9sg>.


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