Irony of Anonymity
One of the ways in which Alicia and her fellow prisoners have their human rights violated is by being kept constantly blindfolded. This abuse of human rights is something she definitely reports and complains about, yet ironically she is unable to definitively identify her captors so that they can be arrested and tried for their crime, because she was blindfolded during her captivity at "the Little School".
Another irony related to anonymity is the fact that, since so many of Alicia's associates used pseudonyms she is unable to contact the relatives of some of the people she knows to be deceased with news of what became of their "disappeared" son or daughter.
Irony of Naming
A school is a place for growth, education, and learning. To refer to a prison and torture camp as a "school", little or otherwise, is perverse and ironic because the purpose of the building is the exact opposite of what its name suggests.
Irony of Poetry
Under interrogation by guards who are trying to extract information about anti-government guerrillas, Alicia's husband loses his ability to communicate clearly. He can no longer answer the questions intelligently, and recites a nursery rhyme about a frog. The interrogators belive that he is speaking allegorically about a guerrilla leader and taunting them, so they torture him further.
Irony of a Nose
Alicia is of Jewish descent, and has a prominent nose. At different times in history, such as in Spain during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Jewish people were exiled from their homes. In Germany during the Nazi era, they were deported, imprisoned, or even killed. So her nose is something she regarded in her youth as unattractive and possibly a liability. But during her captivity her nose became something she loved, because for the first time in her life it gave her an advantage.
Alicia's nose prevents her blindfold from being tied tightly enough to block out everything: through the gap at the bottom, she can peek out enough to see a few things low in her field of vision, such as the footwear she has been given which have a flower on one shoe but not the other.
Irony of Reappearance
After Alicia is released from "the little school", she spends time in a conventional prison before released into exile with her husband and daughter. Although she is nominally free to rejoin Argentine society, she no longer believes it is safe for her to do so. Either way she cannot participate in it freely anymore.
