Romantic Expectations (Situational Irony)
When Lizzie and Fevvers tell Walser about the consequences of Ma Nelson's sudden death and their subsequent eviction, they include the meteoric rise of one of their housemates, Jenny, who, unlike the other women who worked for Ma Nelson, was entirely unprepared for the catastrophe of her demise. Jenny was saved from poverty by the marriage proposal of a lord who used to frequent Nelson's establishment. The lord seemed genuinely in love with Jenny, and she to him, but he choked on a bite of dessert shortly after their wedding, leaving Jenny bereaved (albeit quite wealthy). Lizzie says, "she'd counted on a long and happy life with the old bugger. / Only a whore ... could hope for so much from marriage" (46). Here Lizzie emphasizes the irony that a woman in Jenny's line of work, which required having sex with different clients, many of whom were, themselves, married, would place so much stock in the institution of marriage.
Lamarck's Educated Apes (Situational Irony)
When Carter introduces Lamarck's Educated Apes, they are in the ring, in their makeshift classroom, rehearsing their routine. But their trainer, Lamarck, is passed out drunk, and Mignon, their "keeper," is doing her nails. Carter writes, "the chimps put themelves through their own paces; the trainer's woman was no more than their keeper and Monsieur Lamarck, a feckless drunkard, left them to rehearse on their own" (107). Upon further inspection, Walser realizes that they aren't rehearsing at all, but are actually conducting a lesson and communicating in a written language known only to them.
Ironically, the chimps are presented as "educated," but are not actually expected to be educated by those who present them as such; the fact of the matter is that the chimps are truly educated, that their intellect far surpasses that which their "owners" expect of them, or of which they are believed to be capable.
Buffo's Last Stand (Dramatic Irony)
Though Buffo is a high-functioning alcoholic, before the final show in Petersburg, he drinks far beyond even his seemingly infinite capacity. During the performance, he loses his grasp on reality and tries to butcher Walser with a carving knife. He has to be subdued and dragged off, but the rest of the clowns are forced to play it like it's all a part of the performance, and the crowd is none the wiser. Carter writes:
...as the crowd held its aching sides and mopped its eyes, Samson the Strong Man hauled prone, soaked, semi-conscious, fearfully hallucinating Buffo off up the gangway that led to the foyer as little children gave him one last tittering poke for luck before he vanished as from the face of the earth, while the clowns ran round and round the tiers of seats, kissing babies, distributing bonbons and laughing, laughing, laughing, to hide their broken hearts.
The dramatic irony here aligns the reader with the clowns, who know what the audience does not: Buffo the Great is being forced into an early retirement, and what they're witnessing is really not funny at all, but tragic.
Think of Your Bank Account (Verbal Irony)
As Lizzie and Fevvers are being carted off by their captors after the train wreck, Carter renders an ironic exchange between them: "'Think of your bank account, dearie,' Lizzie ironically advised her sullen foster-child. 'You know it always cheers you up'" (200). This is an example of verbal irony because Lizzie doesn't believe that excessive material wealth should have any bearing on a person's capacity for happiness, and Lizzie knows that Fevvers is aware that she doesn't believe this. The statement is made more ironic by their circumstances; they are being kidnapped, and Fevvers' fortune, in a faraway vault in England, cannot help them.
