The unprotecting father
The father in this story is ironic, because he does the opposite of what a father is supposed to do for their daughter by nature. Instead of protecting her and treasuring her, he rejects her as a liability and marries her off to the highest bidder, not caring when she finds herself in an abusive marriage. He doesn't step in for justice, because he holds the same views about justice and gender that the abusive man does. He is an immoral patriarch.
The unloving husband
The husband has an opportunity to celebrate life and love through sacrifice in his marriage, but instead, he dominates his wife, often threatening her or even hitting her. He takes his emotional baggage out on her as if she were an emotional punching bag. He doesn't love her. Instead, he treats her like an animal, and when he tries to make a baby with her, he doesn't consider her emotions whatsoever. He goes right to humiliation, never admitting that perhaps it might be him that was impotent.
The dying child
When they do conceive, it is ironically not by the advise of the town healer. The mother realizes a deep aspect of her fate in motherhood. She loves her child dearly and sacrifices her life for the child, a demonstration of true love. But, then, the child dies, and her only hope is removed, a symbolic reference to the sad irony of her life that all she wants is health and love, but because of patriarchy and hatred, she only gets death and pain.
The marriage and murder
One day, she snaps and murders her husband. This can be seen as ironic because their relationship is a marriage. Instead of laying one's life down for the other, this marriage is so riddled by hatred that the husband afflicts the wife to the point of desperation. Although she is the one who pulls the trigger, the question is "But for." But for his abuse and mistreatment, would she have been driven to this madness? In the end, the question is not about murder; it is about love, because love would have prevented this tragedy.
Human possession
The novel uses irony to depict the dysfunction in Samya's community. Although she is a person, and a bright person at that, and although she struggles to make her marriage work, there is nothing she can do to enfranchise her healthy opinions. She is perfectly disenfranchised, because her husband has his mind made up that women are not humans like men, but are instead like animals. He hates her, but only because he hates all women. He thinks he can own her like a slave, but she would have been good to him if he had opened his eyes to truly appreciate what a privilege the marriage was.
