The irony of graduation
To graduate with a diploma seems like an automatically good thing, but this book shows that to go to a school with immoral ways is to lend credence to that institution. The irony of graduation in Graduation Day is that graduation would mean becoming complicit in a broken system. Instead of going through the pre-established paths to success, these students take a new path, redefining success for themselves by resisting the institution.
The Testing
Although the Testing is a benchmark of achievement, the failures are eliminated by the state, and in the last novel in this series, the characters learned that the government sometimes eliminates undesirables in this way. The Testing is an ironic symbol for this apocalyptic government and the sneaky ways that they take education and morph it into a horrible thing. The Testing is government sanctioned murder.
The ironic President
As fate should have it, the kids are asked to fight the power from within. They can't participate in the rebellion, because the rebellion is a staged government program through which rebels accidentally give their identities over to government officials, so in this novel, they have to collaborate with President Collindar. Ironically, they have to trust a public official for change, because they lack the power otherwise to do the right thing. The president is ironically helpful, as if fate ordained that the kids should succeed.
The rebellion
The rebellion is totally ironic because. obviously, it seems self-explanatory on the surface; why should they not collaborate with the rebels? Because, in this case, the government was so strategic, they anticipated rebellion and established the rebellion themselves in order to infiltrate rebellious movements from the get-go. In order to succeed at changing their community, they cannot participate in the anarchist rebellion, even though on the surface, the rebellion seems to align most closely with their desire for change.
Success and chaos
Although Cia, Raffe, and Collindar manage to succeed in ending the government conspiracy known as the Testing, they are surprised to learn that the community has fallen into chaos, even though they are convinced the change was good. The irony points to the instability that comes from changing the status quo. Enduring the chaos of change is necessary in order to see the kind of change they desire.
