Situational Irony: Beauty and UBaas
Beauty is responsible for cleaning and dressing UBaas, who is mentally infirm, and while these two tasks might seem to imply she has the power in their relationship—they are intimate, infantilizing, and representative of his completely dependent status—this is not the case. Beauty recognizes the irony of the situation, which is that Richard/UBaas will always have more power than her due to race and class: "Even today—when he can hardly even dress himself—they both know that he is the one with the power over her and that he will never let either of them forget it" (14).
Verbal Irony: Anglicans
Patricia is in a relationship with John Ford, a religious man and headmaster of the local school. Higginson notes that "Patricia liked to joke that she was yet to meet an Anglican who actually believed in God" (18), which is an amusing, ironic statement because it seems ridiculous to think that someone could be an Anglican, a religious denomination, without being religious. Her statement is a commentary on how lived religion is often a watered-down version of doctrine and practice—or maybe even just a label and nothing more.
Dramatic Irony: What We Know That They Don't
Almost the entire second half of the novel is filled with revelations, but since Higginson divides up his narration between five different characters, the reader is often aware of the dramatic irony that exists due to one character knowing something that the other one does not. An example of this is Beauty telling Patricia about Grace's real relationship with Richard, and subsequent interactions between characters (like Patricia and Looksmart) in which this information is known to the reader but not to other characters (like Looksmart).
Situational Irony: John's Death
When Patricia visits John's home after his suicide and agrees to see the body, she is struck by the irony of the situation: "All of it culminated at the end of this thin corridor, this doomed room—after all that light and open space, after each day of getting up and getting things done, after all his noble words in assembly, on Speech Day, in chapel—this was the nature of John's passing" (225). John lived a full life, a religious life, a life of nature and wide-open spaces—yet here he is, dead in an ignominious fashion in a dark room devoid of God.
