Historic Cosmic Irony
Cosmic irony is often used in stories about the human condition. As much as we try to control our destiny and fate, it may seem like outside forces have other ideas. Even though we plan and think that we are the masters of our lives, our fates are sealed and predetermined even before we set out in our lives.
The ancient Greeks were one of the first people to use cosmic irony in plays about the human condition. The idea was that Greek gods would toy and play with human desire and emotion. In Sophocles' play Antigone, human desire to protect the body of a fallen soldier interferes with the laws of the gods (the Greeks believed an abandoned body would wander alone in eternity for forever). We cannot control our fate.
One of the classic examples of cosmic irony is in Thomas Hardy's 1891 Tess of the d'Urbevilles. Despite being innocent, the main character loses everything, including her life, in tragic circumstances beyond her control. At the end of the book, Hardy wrote, 'Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals (in the Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess.' The 'President of the Immortals,' also known as the leader of the gods, played with Tess, and her fate was predetermined.
Later, John Steinbeck used the idea in Of Mice and Men in 1937. Steinbeck wrote about the struggles of George and Lennie, two down and out workers of the Great Depression. Paraphrased from a quote by Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), Steinbeck wrote, 'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.' No matter how much humans attempt to control their fate, the universe may have other ideas.
Cosmic Irony Today
Today, cosmic irony is used nearly always to amuse and illustrate the difficult and unpredictable nature of human existence.
One of the more modern examples of cosmic irony is the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Despite being designed by the best human engineers to be unsinkable, humans want to believe that fate had another idea and the ship sank.
There is a famous story about two seals that were released back into the wild after being rehabilitated after the Exxon' Valdez oil spill. At the official ceremony marking the end of the cleanup, the seals, which had cost a great deal of money to clean and bring back to health after being covered in oil, were released back into the wild. Minutes later, a killer whale ate the two seals. While the story is untrue, humans want to believe that forces outside of their control work against them.
Perhaps the best hypothetical example of cosmic irony would be that after millions of years of humans trying to figure out how to live and coexist in relative peace, we finally somehow manage to do it. Then, as we gather to celebrate that we have found peace and not destroyed ourselves, out of nowhere, a giant asteroid smashes into Earth and wipes out everything. Now that would be epic cosmic irony!