The irony of language
Many academic-type folks say that Joyce's Finnegans Wake is the crown jewel of all English literature. It is therefore ironic that the novel isn't technically written in English, so to speak. Look for instance at the first sentence: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay." Those are all words, but it isn't a sentence. From there, the language decomposes (like Finnegan's dead body) into chaos and gibberish. How's this for an English word? "Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk." That word appears in the novel, along with nine others like it. They are called "Thunder words" by scholars because all the word fragments are derived from words for thunder in other languages.
The non-sequential plot
This novel is not only fragmented in its use of time, it is also intentionally discontinuous. That means that not only is the chronology often confused, sometimes stories are directly antithetical to each other. Perhaps this is a commentary on the Bible and its inconsistent stories (like David meeting Saul, for instance), or perhaps it is a motif of post modernity. In any case, it leads to many ironies, like when Finnegan's corpse is missing from the wake, but then someone spills whiskey on him and he resurrects from the dead—even though allegedly no one could find him. It is as if various realities are mixed together.
The drama of the plot
The central plot is about HCE stealing "forbidden fruit" in a horrifying manner. Allegedly, he molested a couple of innocent girls in a park. But did he really do it? The wife is convinced of his innocence and spends her days writing lengthy arguments in his defense to people in town, hoping to restore some of the family's honor, but the reader must decide for themselves if he did it or not. This is a punishing and powerful use of dramatic irony.
The dreams of children
One of the most brilliant plot devices comes in a side plot about the Porter family. The mom and dad are hoping to have sex, but they keep getting interrupted by their sweet children who have had nightmares. Ironically, the nightmares are of incredible insight. Their dreams are archetypal and insightful, and relevant to the themes of the novel. This makes the scene into a kind of meta-fiction or even perhaps mythology, where the parents finally copulating symbolizes a union of the opposites. It is sublime.
The cycle of the plot
Spoiler alert: The novel ends midsentence, and the common understanding is that the end of the novel completes the midsentence of the beginning. That would read, "A way a lone a last a loved a long the...riverrun, past Eve and Adam's...." That makes the novel into a cycle, raising important questions about the religious argument of the novel. The resurrection of Finnegan (for one last whiskey) is another clue. Perhaps the right way to understand this document is as a life of unconscious material that begins and ends with resurrection. In this case, the dramatic irony is concealing a compelling, transcendental idea about the nature of human life.
