Seymour's secret life
Seymour is essentially ironic because he is dramatic by nature, but also the roots of his identity are secrets. He does not tell about his backstory because he does not like to think about the difficulties he faced growing up in a tribe on a reservation as a gay youth. Now, as an adult, he is established in his identity far from those roots, in New York City where his personality is more easily accepted by community. Now, this story elaborates what he went through by recycling him through it.
The irony of death
The death of his friend is doubly ironic because it sets Seymour's story of self-forgiveness and healing into motion, which is an interesting effect for something as final and painful as the death of a friend. It is also ironic because Seymour's daily life does not depend on considerations of death, so it is ironic to consider death, because death when seen for its truly absurd reality is quite unfathomable and strange. He is forced to learn about this from within the dysfunction of his homelands.
Tribal community and irony
In this novel we see an ethical dynamic which is ironic. The tribe says, "Adopt your inheritance and obey the tribal customs, for the tribe is more valuable than the individual." They were often unaccepting of his sexuality and personality, which is also ironic, because it does not follow from tribal piety that they should reject him; they reject him for emotional reasons and then indoctrinate him with shame for not abiding their expectations. This is ironic because his path toward heroism means rejecting the valuable virtue of filial piety and communal sacrifice.
Shame and mental health
The tribe thinks they are helping Seymour to become more acceptable, but instead, they send him into a long young adulthood where he fights bitterly to establish himself despite the personal cost of shame in his psychology. Shame helps him to guess whether he is behaving in an acceptable manner, but in this case, shame has become ironically dangerous, because he was taught that his own true self was ethically unacceptable. In order to attain mental joy and stability, he must move past his own shame.
Identity as a paradox
Identity is shown to be paradoxical, which is ironic. The irony simply put is this: Although Seymour describes his life in various stages, describing "who he was" during those eras, the truth of the matter is that Seymour has always been one person the whole time. Although it seems impossible for him to process emotionally, his sense of self is continuous and always valid. He feels that sometimes he is "being himself," or not, but all the people that his fate evolves him to become are valid. He is on a journey of accepting all the personalities he has practiced.
