Sarcasm
One of the most efficient and easily identified means of using irony is simple, good old-fashioned sarcasm. This is especially effective when used by the author to penetrate into the mind of a man suffering low-esteem and huge doubt. Such as Jack Torrance’s self-assessment of the man writer who has become dependent upon season employment as the caretaker of an empty hotel:
“A man with his sterling record of alcoholism, student- beating, and ghost-chasing would undoubtedly be able to write his own ticket.”
Juxtaposition
Another effective use of irony is juxtaposition. A talented author wanting to subtly inculcate an environment where things are not what they should be will use juxtaposition without bringing undo attention to it. King, being a talented author, displays this finesse in the ironic association made in Wendy’s mind of the sound of her husband’s typing:
“Down the hall, in the bedroom, Wendy could hear the typewriter Jack had carried up from downstairs burst into life for thirty seconds, fall silent for a minute or two, and then rattle briefly again. It was like listening to machine-gun fire from an isolated pillbox. The sound was music to her ears.”
“only a fire extinguisher, nothing else.”
The fire extinguishers in the Overlook creep the daylights out of Danny Torrance. The narrator informs the reader that Danny is bothered by the extinguishers as part of his ability to shine, but not for any reason he can fully justify. They’re just strange and threatening, but not really a menace. In a way, this is irony as foreshadowing because the future of the Overlook Hotel is going to depend upon the ability to contain a fire; an ability which these old-fashioned extinguishers lack completely.
The Anti-Shining
It becomes quite clear right from the beginning that of all the characters introduced in the book, the one who is least likely to be blessed/cursed with the ability to “shine” is Mr. Ullman. As Jack thinks but does not say out loud, he is far too much the fussy bureaucrat to ever allow something like an overactive imagination to interfere. As a result, the book’s ironic tone kicks off with Mr. Ullman’s greatest fear of creatures that are less than fully human potentially occupying his beloved inn:
“Some of the third-floor chambermaids say they have heard rustling noises. I don’t believe it, not for a moment, but there mustn’t even be that one-in-a-hundred chance that a single rat inhabits the Overlook Hotel.”
August, 1945
According to the scrapbook found by Jack, a Masked Ball was held at the Overlook on the night of August 25, 1945. Guests were adorned in tuxedos, high-heels and, of course, masks. It was a grand and glorious affair where the aroma of alcohol mingled with popping of champagne corks. Ostensibly, the ball was being held to officially celebrate the end of World War II. Ironic, then, that the only explicit description of party decorations are—twice mentioned—Japanese lanterns. The irony is actually twofold: celebrating the defeat of a vicious enemy with co-opting their party decorations, of course, but also partying heartily less than three weeks after the instant annihilation of perhaps as many as a quarter of a million innocent victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
