Movie Questions

Arsenic & Old Lace

There are different types of irony.

Verbal irony is when what someone says in not really what they mean. This can be in sarcasm, which means that you mean the opposite of what you say. For instance we probably all said a little sarcastic irony when we saw that we had to do a major research project at the beginning of this class. “Oh Yeah, we get to do a paper!”

Equivocation irony is when someone says the truth but in a way that makes the other person not believe what they are saying. This is a way for someone to really be truthful but not actually be held accountable since the listener believes it to be untrue. Like if you ate someone’s piece of cake out of the lounge refrigerator and when they asked you about it, you said, “Yeah, I am really the one who ate your cake; can’t you tell by how skinny I am that I don’t miss an opportunity for a snack?” You tell the truth but in a way that sounds like you’re just being sarcastic or trying to be funny.

Dramatic irony is where you as a reader or the audience know information that the characters do not know. The reader/audience is able to see or hear things that are relevant to a characters situation and would change their actions if they knew too. Just like in our play that we are reading Oedipus. If you read the actual/play background information you know that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother even though he doesn’t know that when he kills his father or marries his mother. This irony is demonstrated when he fusses and degrades Choragos and blames him for the murder of the prior king.

Situational irony is where something that is wanted to happen ends up going the wrong way. This can be the characters wants or the reader/audiences’ wants. For example, you could want your favorite movie star to win the girl and everything looks like he will until the end when she ends up taking the jock instead.

Tragic irony is when the character does something that causes tragedy and his contrary to their original intentions. If a character tries to play a prank on someone just to scare them a little and ends up disabling that person for the rest of their life this is a form of tragic irony.

Irony in the movie: Arsenic and Old Lace

This movie is packed with irony and for anyone who has Netflix this movie is a ready to play movie. It is the only one out of the movies that we had to choose from that is. The following is the parts of this movie that prove to have irony:

1.      As the movie begins you see reporters that are at the court house looking for famous people who are getting married when they see Mortimer Brewster, a very famous writer who is the symbol of bachelorhood, wanting to wed. They think that it is ironic that someone so famous for his books on how to stay a bachelor is actually getting married himself.

2.      Two police officers are walking to the Brewster’s house when Sergeant Brophy tells Officer O’Hara, “not to crack jokes about the Brewster sisters because they are the dearest, sweetest, kindest old ladies that ever walked the earth. They are out of this world.” (yet as the audience we find this to not be so true)

3.      When Officer O’Hara asks Sergeant Brophy why the well off ladies needs to rent a room, Brophy tells him, “It’s a way they can dig up people to do good too.” This is actually why the women think that they rent the room but their idea of good is totally different than what the officers’ idea of good is.

4.      The officers get to the door of the Brewster’s’ and Sergeant Brophy tells O’Hara “to watch his language” and O’Hara says that he is not a swearing man. This is proven to be wrong when Teddy blows his bugle and scares O’Hara. He states that he starts to swear!

5.      The sisters are talk about Abby doing something while Martha was out. She said she just couldn’t wait because the Reverend was on his way over. Martha wants to go downstairs to see what Abby had accomplished but she is informed by Abby that it was not there and it was in the window seat. As they go to the window seat Elaine interrupts them so you are unable to see the big surprise.

6.      Mortimer comes by and he sees Teddy run down to the basement with a shovel.

7.      Abby and Mortimer look for his manuscript when Abby finds a picture of Mortimer’s brother Jonathan. They talk about how scary he was. Mortimer says that he saw a play that reminded him of him and that as soon as the curtain went up the next thing you saw was dead bodies. As he says this he opens the window seat and sees a real dead body!

8.      Abby, Martha, and Mortimer talk about killing the gentleman. Martha randomly tells Abby about stopping by a friend’s house that wants them to take Jr. to the movie again. This time though she wants to pick the movie because she doesn’t like scary movies that Jr. picks. Then Abby says they should not allow those types of movies to be made. (They are living these types of movies)

9.      Then the three of them talk about the number of men they have already killed. Mortimer is completely distressed. The phone rings and he answers his hand then goes to answer the real phone. When he walks out Abby ask Martha what the matter was with Mortimer like she really doesn’t know. Martha wants to know from Abby what she thinks could have happened to him. (They really act like they have no clue why he is so upset)

10.  The tragic irony is that both women think they are helping lonely men find peace yet they are actually just murders and not helping anyone.

11.  When Martha talks about how she makes her poison Mortimer says, “It should have quit a kick.” (It really does have that kick!)

12.  Abby tells him how one man was able to tell them how delicious it was before he past and Mortimer says “Well wasn’t that nice of him?” (This is said sarcastically)

13.  Mortimer tells Elaine over and over that his is not throwing her out of the house while he is carrying her out of the house and tells her to get out of there.

14.  Another man comes to rent a room and Abby puts him in the chair that the other men died in. They ask him questions and find out that he has no family and friends. They decide to fix him wine to solve his problems. Mortimer stops the man and scares him off.

15.  The ladies get their Elderberries from the bushes in the cemetery.

16.   Jonathan comes back to the house right after they had talked about him.

17.  They are frightened by Jonathan because his plastic surgeon gave him the face of the last scary movie that they had to watch with Jr.

18.  Jonathan and his surgeon have a dead body just like the Brewster sisters and neither one of them know that they both have one.

19.  Mortimer warns the Judge to not drink wine especially when he goes to the Brewster’s sister.

20.  Dr. Einstein and Jonathan think that Teddy’s hole will fit their dead body perfectly. Like they had purposely made it just for them. They did not know that he was making it for the Brewster sister’s dead body.

21.  As Jonathan looks for his dead body that Dr. Einstein hides when Elaine comes into the house he tells her that Dr. Einstein is a bit of a magician sarcastically since he hid the body so well that Jonathan cannot even find it. Elaine has no clue that this is why he is saying it.

22.  When Mortimer comes back he asks Jonathan where he got his face, Hollywood. He doesn’t know that everyone else thinks he looks like the guy from the scary movie too.

23.  Jonathan tells Mortimer that he will take care of him in a little bit when he goes upstairs. Mortimer doesn’t realize that Jonathan means he is going to kill him.

24.  Mortimer opens the window seat and sees a different body. He fusses at Abby for killing someone else. She says it is not her man. Abby says that the man is an imposter and if he thinks he can come and be buried in their cellar he is mistaken. She will not have services for a stranger. She thinks the man came by himself.

25.  Mortimer fusses with Jonathan and he calls him handsome. (That is far from what he really thinks of him)

26.  Mortimer leaves and as he leaves he tells Jonathan that when he comes back he expects them to be gone, but then he tells them to wait for him.

27.  Jonathan has killed just as many men as the women but he doesn’t like that they are tied up with him. So he needs to kill another one (Mortimer) to beat them.

28.  Mortimer tells Elaine that he can’t marry her because his family is insane. She says that his aunts are the sweetest people she knows and doesn’t realize that they really are insane.

29.  The Brewster sister want to go to the police because they are burying a foreign with their Methodist man and do not realize that they have murdered too.

30.  You see Dr. Einstein downstairs in the cellar and he has on the shoes that was seen on the floor earlier and when the Brewster aunt picks it up and looks at it. It’s their dead man’s shoes.

31.  Dr. Einstein tries to warn Mortimer that Jonathan wants to kill him but he will not listen. Dr. Einstein say that the people in plays are smarter than him but Mortimer says they are not and tells him about a play where a man knows he is in the house with murders and he should know that he is in danger and is even warned to get out but he doesn’t go. He does this to show him how people in plays do not have more sense than him. He starts describing how the man gets killed and Jonathan starts doing the same things behind Mortimer’s back. He gets tied up and gagged by Jonathan as he explains the play the same way.

32.  Dr. Einstein wants a drink and finds the Aunt’s wine before they kill Mortimer. They are about to drink it and die and save Mortimer when Teddy comes out and blows his bugle and makes them drop their glass of wine.

33.  Officer O’Hara comes in and sees Mortimer tied up and believes Dr. Einstein and says that he is acting out a play. So he tells Mortimer that someone stole his act and explains it to him and as he talks about a guy coming to kill his character with a long blade, Jonathan is coming behind him with a knife to kill him.

34.  When Jonathan wakes up from being knocked out, Sergeant Brophy is on the phone talking about having Teddy and going to bring him in for blowing his bugle but he thinks that they are talking about him. He tells on himself and tells about his reward.

35.  As everyone fights Mortimer sits on the steps and talks about having a “fine day”. He tells the officers that hitting Jonathan over the head won’t hurt because he had stabbed him with a fork earlier and it didn’t faze him.

36.  His description was as a wanted criminal described him as the same person that everyone keeps saying he looks like.

37.  None of the cops believe there are bodies in the cellar.

38.  The aunt’s wanted to go to Happy Dale with Teddy. Mr. Witherspoon says that sane people can’t go. Dr. Witherspoon doesn’t realize that they are insane too. They start telling about their bodies and when the police believe them Mortimer starts trying to make them believe they are insane by talking like that.

39.  When they get the description of Jonathan’s accomplice from the station, Dr. Einstein is standing right in front of them but they do not realize that he is right there.

To be an older movie, I really enjoyed this movie. It was funny and very entertaining. It does show lots of examples of irony!