Irony of loss
The novel portrays the irony of loss in the sense of how fast an incident happens that changes lives forever, how it only takes a moment for everything built to come tumbling down. Stephen, in his recollection of the loss of Kate, often mentions how time passed in seconds. He turned for a few seconds and when he looked back she was gone forever.
Julie
Julie could be seen as a problematic character of the novel. Her actions can be described as selfish. She abandons her husband in the worst time of both of their lives to try to find herself again ignoring his pain. At the end, they get back together and cry for their loss together, but her actions leading up to that are questionable with her keeping the pregnancy from him up until the point she was about to give birth. The ending is made up of emotional reunion and it is a beautiful love story, but the selfish actions and understanding that comes from only one side aren't easy to ignore.
Charles Darke's transformation
The side-story of Charles Darke is quite an ambiguous one and filled with irony. He is, at first, portrayed as a successful businessman and politician, quite a role model figure. This is what makes his sudden transformation into a grownup child thus more shocking. The two sides, in both of which Charles proves successful, are ironic. He is adulthood personified in the first side shown of me, but in his child portrayal he is so convincing that Stephen is not able to recognize him at first, and later unable to grasp that this is the man he knew.
