The Irony of building a new leg
Max uses ‘building a new leg’ ironically to depict the hope of possibilities. Charlie’s left leg is broken but he is optimistic that he can still build a new leg to resume his normal life. However, it is not possible to build a new leg once the current one is completely broken.
“Because while I was sad to lose my leg, now I could build a better one”
The Irony of a train
As a child, Charlie wants to be a train. The train has been ironically used by the author to portray Charlie’s possibility to do heavy-duty works. However, the imposition of heavy duties on him causes more harm than good. He ends up breaking his leg as an adult in the workplace.
“As a boy, I wanted to be a train.”
The Irony of Isolation
Maxi notes that Charlie is not visited by anybody in the hospital. However, Charlie claims that it is very pleasant and yet he complains that nobody visits him. The reader expects it to be unpleasant but Charlie argues that it is very pleasant for not being visited.
“Nobody visited me. It was very pleasant”
The Irony of Love
Charlie provides a nasty description of Cassandra who is in front of him to hear his opinions on legal action. According to Charlie, Cassandra’s face is blank and terrible, her breath smells like cinnamon and betrayal. He goes ahead to say that her skirt is snagging. It is ironic at last that he falls in love with her.
“I realized I was holding my breath. I felt shaky and close to tears. I had never been in love before”
The Irony of a guy in the Lab Control.
In his lifetime, Charlie has not done anything immoral to deserve isolation from people. People avoid Charlie like a plague without any precise reason. However, the guy in the Lab Control with questionable behavior is likable and gets invited to parties. Max writes:
“There is a guy in Lab Control who once killed a woman with his car, and he gets invited to parties. I don’t understand that”
