The Woman Who Had Two Navels Irony

Only One Navel (Situational Irony)

Having spoken with Connie and believed her when she said she has two navels, Pepe Monson meets Concha. She is quick to correct Connie's account, informing Pepe that her daughter is eighteen, not thirty, and that she is quite sure Connie has only one bellybutton. In this instance of situational irony, the surreal atmosphere Connie creates is dispelled by her mother's no-nonsense attitude. As a result, both Pepe's and the reader's understanding of what is and isn't true becomes muddled.

Remembering That House He Had Never Seen (Situational Irony)

Pepe Monson grows up hearing elaborate stories of what his father's childhood home in Manila was like, developing his own memory of a place he has never been to. Because the house lives in the realm of fantasy for Pepe, it takes on such weight in his mind that he remembers a house he has never seen "more vividly ... than any of the houses he had actually lived in." In this instance of situational irony, the expectation that a person would remember something they have seen is undermined by the paradoxical truth that a place constructed by fantasy can appear more vivid in the mind's eye than a place one has inhabited.

Doll Offering to the Idol With Two Navels (Dramatic Irony)

During their emotional affair in Manila, Connie brings Paco to the Chinese quarter, where she buys dolls she offers to an idol with two bellybuttons in a temple. While her actions are opaque to Paco, the reader understands that she first discovered she was different for having two navels when she saw that her childhood doll only had one. At the time, Connie threw the doll in a pond. In this instance of dramatic irony, the reader understands what Paco doesn't: the offering of the doll has a symbolic connection to Connie's initial discovery and reaction as a child.

"Go Away! Leave Me Alone!" (Situational Irony)

Toward the end of the novel, Pepe reflects on how his father returned from his visit to Manila with the same lethargy, despair, and irritability as Paco does. Just as Paco tells Pepe to leave him alone and to go away, Pepe's father once shouted the same when Pepe tried to learn what his father had experienced while finally revisiting his homeland. In this instance of situational irony, Pepe observes the eerie phenomenon of two Filipino men close to him becoming ghosts of their former selves upon visiting a country that existed for them in fantasy.