The location of the Sea of Flames (dramatic irony)
There is dramatic irony in the changing location of the diamond, the Sea of Flames: the reader is almost always kept abreast of where the diamond is, yet the characters often are not aware of this, or they are oblivious to the diamond's presence. For example, as von Rumpel searches for it, the reader is aware of its presence with Daniel LeBlanc. Also, in the beginning of the novel, Marie-Laure shows the reader the location of the diamond in 1944: inside the model house of Number 4 rue Vauborel. However, as the novel goes back in time, it reveals that Marie-Laure only discovers the location of the diamond shortly before the bombings of Saint-Malo. In the end, the reader is also shown where the diamond ultimately resides, though no living character knows this.
Marie-Laure's ability to "see" (situational irony)
“Marie-Laure knows this even though her back is to him, even though he says nothing, even though she is blind—Papa’s thick hair is wet from the snow and standing in a dozen angles off his head, and his scarf is draped asymmetrically over his shoulders, and he’s beaming up at the falling snow.” (ch 15, light)
Although Marie is technically blind, she is one of the most perceptive characters in the book. Through her other senses and her memory, she constructs an emotional and visceral reality for the reader more so than any other character in the book.
Werner joined the military to have a different fate from his father, killed in a mine; yet he ends up trapped in a small confined space (dramatic irony)
Werner makes the decision to join the military, despite his doubts, because he does not want to end up in the same fate as his father, who died trapped inside a coal mine, his body never recovered. Although he realized that Schulpforta and the cruel nationalist ideology are wrong, he does not turn away from them, partially in fear of the fate that would await him if he were to go back to Zollverein. We see this when Werner struggles after finding out Frederick has been beaten so badly he won’t be coming back to Schulpforta: “In the hall with the door shut behind him, Werner presses his forehead against the wall, and a vision of his father’s last moments comes to him, the crushing press of the tunnels, the ceiling lowering. Jaw pinned against the floor. Skull splintering. I cannot go home, he thinks. And I cannot stay” (Ch 85). However, in the Saint-Malo bombing in 1944, despite his efforts to avoid the same fate as his father, Werner ends up trapped in the cellar of a hotel, with no way out.
Werner’s letter to Jutta in which he states his mistakes, but all of the the mistakes are censored—the only phrase remaining is his saying that he hopes she understands (dramatic irony)
“Frederick used to say there is no such thing as free will and that every person’s path is predetermined for him just like X and that my mistake was that I X X X X X X X X X X X X . I hope someday you can understand.” (Ch 88).
Werner has begun to realize that the decision he made to go into the military was a decision: he was responsible for his actions, and Jutta was right in her opposition to his joining the military. He reflects on what Frederick said to him, and earnestly writes this in a letter to her—yet, the substance of the letter was deemed unfit by the censor, and thus was blacked out. In this moment when Werner is attempting to make things right with his sister, instead she just receives a bunch of blacked out sentences, which ironically ends with "I hope someday you can understand": there is not enough information there for her to understand much of anything.
