Irony of Immortality
The entire novel centers around this one crucial irony. When Morel uses his machine to give his subject a twisted version of eternal life, the results do not resemble what he dreams. Instead of creating avatars through which he and his friends can live forever, he creates prisons in which they are forced to live the same seven days over and over for eternity, if they can be said to be living at all. Far from saving their souls, Morel condemns them.
Irony of Decay
Building upon the irony of immortality, there is another crucial irony at play in Morel's work: in attempting to create a life for the future, Morel wastes and destroys his life in the present. Use of the machine has unfortunate side effects: the subject whose life is being "preserved" begins to physically fall apart as their physical forms quickly decay (including hair loss, nail loss, and more), leading to premature death. In pursuit of eternal life, they achieve the opposite; the machine that supposedly bestows life actually takes it away.
Irony of Faustine
The narrator develops an unhealthy obsession with Faustine, a woman involved in Morel's seven-day immortal replay. He yearns for her more than life itself (as he quite literally proves at the end), but he will never be able to attain her. She will never even be able to know of his presence, as Morel's experiment killed her in real life, leaving this replica to enact the same seven days for eternity with no alteration. She is within his physical grasp - he even sleeps on a mat in her room - but they will never have the connection he craves.
Irony of the Fugitive
The narrator is a fugitive, running from the law to escape a criminal sentence. He only goes to the island to escape death. Ironically, he has only run into the jaws of death; Faustine entrances him, and he willingly gives up his life to be with her forever.
Irony of Superimposition
When Morel's machines run, they project physical, immovable images of people and objects into the environment, such as the walls and the sun. This occurrence, even though it seems to be adding to the world, both literally and figuratively, actually subtracts from the health of its condition. The dual suns blaze down on the narrator's back as he complains of the stifling heat, and the walls nearly kill him by surrounding and entrapping him.
