Dramatic Irony: The Factors Limiting Japan
One of the most strikingly ironic elements of the story was not even discernible until years after its initial publication. In the opening flashback, the story’s protagonist recalls words spoken by his father as he stared out to the horizon, beyond which lay all the islands of the South Seas. He refers to these islands as the “stepping-stones to the future of Japan” before rhetorically contemplating, “Who can limit our future?” Ironically, of course, history would prove that it was none other than Japan’s wartime enemy—the United States—that could, did, and has limited Japan’s future.
Verbal Irony: Killing as Kindness
When Sadao says the "kindest thing would be to put him back in the sea," there is a degree of irony there, whether he intends it or not. It is hard to see how it would be "kind" to let the main drown or die of his nasty wounds; in contrast, the truly kind thing is Sadao taking the man into his home to save his life.
Situational Irony: An American in a Japanese Room
There is tremendous irony in the fact that the room where the American—the foreigner, the enemy—is taken for his operation and to recover is Sadao's father's room, a room where "everything here had been Japanese to please the old man, who would never in his own home sit on a chair or sleep in a foreign bed."
