Andy: “You’ll like that. It’s about a prison break.”
Red: “We ought to file that under educational too.”
This dialogue from a scene in the movie The Shawshank Redemption is a clear example of irony. In this case, verbal irony acts as an outlet by using dialogue, although situational irony exists as well. In this scene, the main character Andy (who is portrayed as a highly educated man) is working in the library with his fellow prison inmates. The inmates arrange the books into sections and one comes across the novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The inmate has never heard of the story and Andy explains to him that it is about a prison break. Red, an older inmate, laughs and makes the ironic remark “We ought to file that under educational too.”
Irony is often used in films because it is easily created by using dialogue and adds a comedic element to a movie. In this scene, the irony comes from the situation that they are in, stuck in prison. When Red says that they should file the book under the educational section of the library, he does not mean it literally. He sees that the situation is ironic because they are stuck in prison and makes a comic remark that only makes sense in this specific situation. Red saying that they should put the book in the educational section implies that the prisoners would read it to learn about how to break out of prison, but the audience knows that Red is purely joking. The other inmates react by laughing at the joke and at the ironic situation of having this prison break book in the prison, and further by putting it in the educational section. The irony here is implied through both the dialogue of the characters and the situation that they are in.
The dialogue here is striking because it is so ironic. It adds a funny element to a situation that is otherwise negative. It brings a small hint of comedy in for the audience to enjoy after watching the hardships of the prison inmates throughout the movie. The irony in the dialogue also reminds the viewer that these people are still human. Although irony is used in literature, it is often used in everyday situations such as this one, and because one of the inmates used irony to make the others laugh and enjoy the time they were spending together, the audience can personally relate. Irony can be used to make a funny comment in an ironic situation and make others laugh, even if the situation is a negative one.
wordsfrommetoyou 
You make a very good point when you express that irony reminds the viewers that these people are human. I think irony is a commonality, meaning that it is something simple yet funny that people of all class, race, age etc can relate too on some level. It is a way of unifying people, because it usually refers to something cultural. Irony is also one of the only tools I know that can take something negative and make it comical, that is very hard to achieve. I think there are many forms of irony and it would be fun to explore more of them. -Kate
When reading this post, I came up with a second and possibly unintended meaning for the line “We ought to file that under educational too.” Although I entirely agree with your analysis, which perfectly describes the irony of the conversation between two men in jail talking about a book that describes a prison break, I feel that the speaker may be making a subtle pun on the word “file.” Though perhaps I am entirely reading too much into the quote (I have not seen this movie), I feel that this word is a subtle hint at a commonly used tool in prison escapes. The stereotypical prison escape always begins with a hidden blade or file being hidden inside a book’s spine or a cake. In this case, not only is the speaker getting at the irony of the book being inside a prison, but he is also hinting at a means of escape.