There’s only two or three things I know for sure!
The magic phrase which later became the title of the book belongs to narrator’s aunt. She said that highlighting that even her life experience is too small to understand the world. Moreover, she added that it’s never the same things and she is never as sure as she’d like to be. So, he emphasizes as well that the world and its values are changing so rapidly that even those things she knows for sure are not the same and the level of her assurance is decreasing with the course of time. Here the irony is used for highlighting the paradox of the woman, and show how fast their thoughts are changing.
Big girls don’t ask silly questions
Allison’s aunt was a wise woman who knew “only two or three things for sure”. She wasn’t a friend for a girl, but she definitely was a good interlocutor. One time when Allison asked her why she’d said that parentage in the town is even more dangerous that politics, the aunt answered meaningly that such a big girl shouldn’t ask such silly questions. Allison was puzzled, as if she knew that! The irony here represents aunt’s attitude toward her nephew.
How many children had Granny?
When there was a need to write in the family Bible (which they didn’t have) all members of the family, both aunts, Grace and Dot and Allison’s mother were puzzled because as Dot said there was a time when they didn’t have a family and they cannot remember all its members. So, they started their counting from Granny, Dot said that she knew that Granny had 11 children, but she knew only 6. Then Grace interrupted her with noticing that she heard that Granny had 9 children. Dot replied that it doesn’t matter how many children Granny had because, that way or another she still knows only 6 of them. The irony shows the episode from family life, a little misunderstanding to highlight how little these people knew about their family.
Shameless Grandmother
Allison’s mother has never told her stories because she thought that people wont approve them and will judge her if she tells something wrong. But Allison’s grandmother liked telling the stories and in this aspect the girl calls her granny “shameless”: “Mattie Lee Gibson would tell people anything. Sometimes she even told the truth”. The irony shows girl’s attitude to the stories told by her granny and the low level of truth in them.
