The Irony of the White Hat
At the beginning of the play, the Alcalar women are waiting at the harbor to receive their new lector, Juan Julian. They are looking for signs of recognition among the many men who are disembarking, but Marela eventually asks her mother Ofelia how the lector will recognize them. In response, Ofelia says that she wrote to him saying that she will be the one wearing a white hat. Ironically, and rather humorously, Marela then points out that this will not make the lector’s job easier, since more than 50 women on the pier are also wearing white hats (17).
The Irony of the Jealous Husband
In the beginning of the play, Conchita's husband Palomo cheats on her, and his refusal to engage Conchita in a discussion of this affair exacerbates the deteriorating condition of their marriage. After the arrival of the romantic and handsome Juan Julian, however, Conchita reserves her right to do the same thing her husband did and takes Juan Julian on as a lover. Ironically, however, soon afterwards, Palomo becomes extremely jealous, wanting to have Conchita only for himself. It is this jealousy, then, that puts the spark back in their relationship once Conchita explains to Palomo that Juan Julian has shown her a different way to love others and herself, and that he must surrender himself to her entirely if he wants their marriage to heal.
The Irony of Juan Julian's Death
Just before Cheché kills Juan Julian in Act 2 out of jealousy (Cheché is attracted to Marela, who is obviously smitten with Juan Julian, despite the fact that this latter relationship is not a physical or romantic one), Juan Julian is reading a passage from Anna Karenina. The passage he is reading, however, is ironically about a potential duel between Anna Karenina's husband and her lover, Vronsky. This is ironic for two reasons: first, in a previous scene, Juan Julian had explained that dueling is more honorable than killing someone in cold blood, which Cheché is about to do to him; second, the last words that Juan Julian reads are "what would be the sense of killing a man in order to define one's own relations with a woman," even though this is exactly the fate that is to befall him seconds later (81).
The Irony of the Play's End
After Juan Julian is killed, there is no one left in the factory to play the lector role and finish the book. The workers begin this time without a lector working in silence, but eventually Ofelia cries out that the silence is thicker and much worse than before. Marela proposes that they finish reading the book and, ironically, the one who offers to read the book is Palomo, Conchita's husband who was aggravated by Juan Julian and wanted to see him fired more than almost anyone else. This irony thus shows us the depths of the tragedy felt by the Alcalar family, as well as the tenderness of Palomo and Conchita's reconciliation.
