Which is an example of Dramatic Irony?

• A. In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet is alive while Romeo believes she is dead.
• B. The necklace is fake.
• C. The Gift of the Magi's gifts.
• D. A Modest Proposal satirizes policy.

Answer: (A)

Dramatic irony happens when the audience knows something crucial that a character does not, and that knowledge shapes how we interpret events. In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet is alive while Romeo believes she is dead. That gap between what we know and what he believes makes his actions—his grief, his hurried plan, and the tragic decisions that follow—feel doomed from the start, because we can foresee the inevitable consequences once the truth is revealed. The other scenarios show different kinds of irony or satire rather than the audience having privileged knowledge about a character’s situation, so they don’t illustrate dramatic irony in the same way.