Dramatic Irony
King creates dramatic irony in his story through the insertion of “non-fictional” accounts into the narrative. Through these insertions written after the case, the reader learns certain details of what happens at the end, but these details are fragmentary and occasionally contradictory. King introduces this dramatic irony putting a gap between what the readers know that the characters don’t to manipulate the tension and suspense, urging the reader forward through the linear chronological narrative like bait in the water.
Cinders
The storyline develops allegorically along lines which strongly allude to the fairy tale narrative of Cinderella. Carrie is the poor, put-upon victim who through the intervention of a fairy godmother (Sue Snell) gets invited to the ball (prom) to reign as princess to her Prince Charming (Tommy). Of course, being Stephen King, this Cinderella tale takes a gruesomely tragic ironic turn. which leaves most of the town in cinders.
Woops!
That ironic turn results, of course, in carnage such as nobody in the small town has ever witnessed. Instead of just losing her shoe when the clock strikes midnight, Carrie loses dignity, her self-control, her goodness and ultimately her mind. Death and devastation rains down upon almost the entire town. And who is to blame for it all? Chris and Billy and the bucket of pig’s blood? Well, yes, but not entirely. It is important to remember that the bucket of blood never would made it to the prom in the first place if Carrie wasn’t there. And who was pulling the strings that made Carrie’s unlikely appearance at the prom all possible? Sue Snell. The girl who wanted to help.
The Cigarette
Arguably, the most ironic object in the story is one single lit cigarette butt. A single cigarette butt tossed out a window at just the worst time possible: eleven minutes after a gas main was opened. The irony? The cigarette butt which ignites the gas which leads to an explosion which destroys half a block in the blink of an eye and creates a hellish inferno targeting the rest of the town is tossed out the window by an attendant in an ambulance speeding to a scene already touched by Carrie’s descent into madness.
Tragic Irony
Carrie allows herself to be...carried away…by all the ceremony and pomp at the prom. Tommy even says she’s beautiful and all her defenses drop for just a single moment to express the most tragically irony thought in the entire novel:
“she became quite sure that nothing bad could happen this night-perhaps they themselves might even be voted King and Queen of the Prom.”
Of course, it turns out that they are voted King and Queen and that dream come true is the beginning of what turns out to be something much worse than a bad night.
