The Situational Irony of Juxtaposition (and Love)

 

juxtaposition - noun - the fact of two things being seen or placed together with contrasting effect (Google).

situational irony - noun - when something occurs that is in direct contrast to what was expected. 

I don't know about you, but when I attend a wedding, I don't think about situational irony, juxtaposition, or any of the other literary devices even though as a retired English teacher, the likelihood of their creeping up on me is conceivable. Most likely, like you, I attend nuptials for celebratory reasons: I want to escape exegesis and wish the bride and groom well, reveling in their ebullience, which is almost always at its apex during the reception. On Sunday, I attended a wedding that involved the situational irony of juxtaposition: what I witnessed had not been expected and wound up being in direct opposition to the newly weds' unmitigated joy.

I kind of knew that when the minister used wine as a metaphor for wedded bliss (Jesus did turn the water into the controlled substance at Cana) in his brief sermon that this particular affair would at some point begin to reek of not booze, but situational irony as the bride has been trying to get her mother to cut down on her own consumption of the beverage. In fact, she enlisted me the night before, "Please remind me not to drink so much Chardonnay at the wedding, will you" albeit I didn't get the chance.

Yet the apotheosis of situational irony of juxtaposition unearthed its head shortly after I went out to the parking lot to obtain a sweater from my car. I, along with a mysterious bald man who left the party for a smoke, noticed that married friends of mine (both on round two) were in the midst of a verbal battle, the tempestuous climax of which occurred when the husband came frighteningly close to running his wife over with his BMW SUV. I jest not. Tragically, it was even more shocking than any social atrocity I had ever seen staged on The Housewives of New Jersey. Meanwhile inside the venue, the newly weds were soldered together somewhere on the dance floor, nuzzling and whispering sweet nothings into each other's ear. Yup. It doesn't get more situationally ironic and juxtaposed as that. "Reality. What a concept." (Robin Williams).

Which just leads me to one question: If love can be so strong at the start of the relationship (my conflicted friends were once in agreement, especially on their own wedding day), where does it go three to twenty-plus years later? How can something so beautiful evanesce into something so ugly? The answer? Things change. People change. Marriage, like the people who inhabit it, is flawed. 

So what's the takeaway? My advice to all of you married people who want to stay married would be to keep love in mind–the real, unconditional kind that begins and ends with kindness. "A life without love is like a sunless garden (or a wedding reception) when the flowers are dead" (Oscar Wilde). There is no conflict that cannot be resolved before the big guns are rolled out in the way of a gunned engine and spinning tires. The former is essential, the latter, unnecessary. 

 

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