"Dead Meat"
A particularly loathsome school bully named Fulcher directs this phrase in an even more loathsome manner more times over the course of the film that most viewers probably can recall. Jess, of course—ironically—does not wind up as dead meat. There is an ironic twist to the manifest irony, however: Fulcher is likely dead meat as far as any serious plans he may ever entertain about attaining success in life. He’s a meathead.
A Bridge Too Late
The most tragic irony of the film is that had there actually been a bridge TO Terabithia, the tragedy which throws a dark and unexpectedly depressing cloud over the whole story would likely have been avoided. Ultimately, there is a bridge to Terabithia, but it is built a day late and a dollar short to avoid irony.
It's Not the Shoes, but...Defeat
A more humorous bit of irony occurs early when Jess verges into hissy fit hysterics after his mom tosses his sneakers and he is forced to wear an old pair of his sister’s during the Big Race. Try as he might, poor Jess just can’t disguise the fact that he’s wearing…girl’s shoes. The ironic part is that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway: he gets beat by the only girl taking part in the race.
Life is a Lot like School
A new kid shows up at school and she’s pretty, philosophic, friendly, nice, smart, talented, and interesting. Naturally, the confederacy of dunces in charges of determining who is popular and who is not rejects her immediately and without reservation. Further evidence that in many ways, life really is a whole lot like school, only without summer vacation.
Leslie...or Janice...or Jess...or even Fulcher
At a certain level—unfair though it may actually be when seriously considered—the cruelest irony of the film is that the character with the greatest lust for life who seeks to hurt no one except for retribution on behalf of other and who expresses a vociferously upbeat and optimistic worldview is the character who is cut down so tragically early in her young life. It would be easy to see how some viewers might ponder the unfairness of this turn of events within a perspective that there is no shortage of other characters whom one might rather see in Leslie’s place. The real irony, of course, is that the death of any child—even jerks, bullies and phonies—is tragic. The death of a toad like Fulcher or that of Janice if occurring before the truth about her psychological condition is revealed might at first at least seem less ironic even if one didn’t necessarily feel any kind of positive emotional reaction toward the happenstance. In reality, it is not because of Leslie’s joie de vivre that her death is ironic because, ultimately, the death of every child is ironic in comparison to the long lives of those who do not seem deserving of such fortune and grace.
