Dramatic Irony: What the Reader Knows and the Characters Don't
Atwood creates dramatic irony in the first part of the text through telling us that the narrator had a husband and a child, but letting the other characters believe that she did not have them. For example, Anna tells the narrator she is lucky she did not have kids so her breakup was easier, but the reader knows that she did indeed have a child. Of course, the even greater irony is that we find out that we too did not have all of the information, as the narrator made up her story and her memories, and there was in fact no husband or child at all.
Situational Irony: Love
The narrator looks down at Joe while he is sleeping and thinks, "Perhaps that was the only time there could be anything like love, when he was asleep, demanding nothing." Though she is not trying to be ironic, there is a certain irony to this statement: how can she love someone who is asleep, who is dead to world and can give and take absolutely nothing?
Situational Irony: Americans
The narrator and her companions are sure the loud, obnoxious, and violent powerboat-driving, heron-killing, over-fishing men are Americans, but they turn out to be Canadians. This is disturbingly ironic for the four, who associate such noxious traits with their southern neighbors and not with their own countrymen. It forces the narrator—and the reader—to see that negative traits are not wholly the providence of one group of people; after all, David is a misogynist, Anna is fake, and Joe is aggressive and practically a rapist.
Verbal Irony: David and His Film
The narrator is being a little ironic in the way she recounts David's role as the "director" of the film. She notes that he has no experience and he has no idea what the film is even going to be about; she sensibly wonders how he is supposed to know what to film when he does not know what it is about. Though her irony is muted, it is still present.
