Verbal Irony: The Duck's Luck
On one of their adventures Alberto shoots down a bird and Che writes ironically, "By a masterful stroke of good luck (though not for the duck), the bird fell into the lake" (48). Che isn't often funny or ironic in the text, but he does occasionally offer an amusing instance like this. It is good luck indeed for the men, but bad luck for the bird that lost its life.
Dramatic Irony: The "Puma"
The men are warned of a ferocious puma; when they hear something scratching at the door one night, Che details how afraid he was, and how he had to take up his gun and kill or be killed. Ironically, though, it is not a puma but rather a hapless pet dog that Che shoots.
Situational Irony: Tiresome Hospitality
Che writes often of how hospitable the Chileans are; in that country, the travelers eat, drink, and sleep well. Hospitality is a positive term that denotes those aforementioned things, and certainly Che and Alberto are grateful. However, Che notes ruefully, "As usual, Chilean hospitality wiped us out" (60). One should not be made more tired by hospitality, but Che says ironically that this degree of hospitality can indeed be exhausting.
Verbal Irony: Empowering the Privileged
When musing on Chile's socioeconomic state, Che writes, "Chile as a nation offers economic promise to any person disposed to work for it, so long as they don't belong to the proletariat: that is, anyone who has a certain dose of education and technical knowledge" (88). This is ironic because people who have money and education are already ahead and thus should not be rewarded for appearing to work hard: a truly progressive nation would look to its marginalized and impoverished and uneducated to help them rather than simply conclude they do not want to work hard.
