Popularity (Situational Irony)
At the start of the novel, Marianne is a total outsider. Her clothes, her personality, and her interests are considered frightening and even repulsive by her peers. Connell's affability, humility, and flexibility, meanwhile, make him extremely popular. In college at Trinity, though the two protagonists' personalities are initially unchanged, their levels of popularity completely reverse in a surprising instance of situational irony. Connell's personality and demeanor are considered uncool, while Marianne's intellectualism and her self-assuredness make her an object of great admiration. This popularity, too, is eventually overturned, and both characters are forced to forge relationships and identities as individuals, without the protective shell created by extreme popularity—and in fact, without the privacy offered by loneliness. The sudden reversal of the two characters' social statuses and roles is deeply unexpected and ironic, particularly because the characters themselves haven't changed much—only their situations have.
Feminism (Situational Irony)
In a particularly sharp use of situational irony, Rooney creates one character, Peggy, who regularly uses feminism—or a loose approximation of it—in order to defend misogyny and sexism. What makes this ironic is the unexpected way in which feminism—a movement to help women and lessen inequality—here becomes a cudgel used to defend men, inequality, and the status quo. When Marianne complains about Connell treating her unfairly, and later, when she complains about Jamie's cruelty, Peggy dismisses her by casually insisting that men cannot be expected to act in any other way. This irony is part of a wider political critique in the novel. Both Marianne and Connell encounter, and are somewhat bewildered by, peers who express certain political commitments without living them out—or, as in this specific situation, peers who weaponize political language in order to fend off actual political change. Rooney suggests that this is a particular issue in privileged, exclusive spaces such as expensive universities. Peggy is able to use feminism cynically, in a way disconnected from reality, precisely because the stakes of activism appear so low and abstract to her wealthy social group.
Connell and Marianne's Breakup (Dramatic Irony)
At an early height of their romance, Connell announces to Marianne that he will be moving home to Carricklea for the summer. The reader, able periodically to access Connell's point of view, soon realizes that he has made his choice for a specific and concrete reason: he can't afford to pay rent and doesn't want to ask Marianne for a place to stay. But, when we reenter Marianne's point of view, she doesn't have access to that information. Instead—even while we as readers know full well this isn't the case—Marianne is convinced that Connell's move back to Carricklea was nothing more than an excuse to break up with her. This misunderstanding becomes a major, unspoken source of tension between Connell and Marianne, until Connell finally shares the truth much later in the novel. But, for a substantial chunk of the book, the reader knows something that Marianne does not, and this dramatic irony makes Marianne appear vulnerable and even naive.
Alan's Cruelty (Situational Irony)
Marianne's brother's statements are often, unintentionally, ironic. He often berates Marianne for acting boastful, as if unaware that he has a far more self-aggrandizing personality. But perhaps the height of irony where Alan is concerned comes near the end of the novel, where he scolds Marianne for seeing Connell because of Connell's mental illness. Indeed, he tells her that Connell is "fucked in the head." Alan is correct in the sense that Connell struggles with depression and takes medication, but it is deeply unexpected and ironic for someone like him—abusive, insecure, and violent—to express fear of a person with a mental illness. Even more ironic is the way that Alan seizes on Connell's medication and treatment as evidence of his dangerousness, disparaging the very things that help Connell. Perhaps most ironic of all is the way in which he frames his attack of Connell as a defense of Marianne—a way to keep her, and her reputation, safe. By this point in the novel, readers are well aware that Alan is a much greater threat to Marianne than Connell, whose depression makes him a danger only to himself.
