Irony make the truth of past situations obvious to all. Other prominent examples of outcomes now seen as poignantly contrary to expectation include: Irony is often used in literature to produce a comic effect. This may also be combined with satire. For instance, an author may facetiously state something as a well-known fact and then demonstrate through the narrative that the fact is untrue. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" begins with the proposition "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." In fact, it soon becomes
Pride and Prejudice that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." This sets marriage as a central subject—and really, a central problem—for the novel generally. Readers are poised to question whether or not these single men are, in fact, in want of a wife, or if such desires are dictated by the "neighbourhood" families and their daughters who require a "good fortune". Marriage is a complex social activity that takes political economy, and economy more generally, into account. In the case of Charlotte Lucas, for example, the seeming success of her marriage lies in