Verbal and Situational Irony: Funerals
Vivaldo and Cass attend Rufus's funeral, both of them slightly uncomfortable about aspects of the event but aware that it is important to come together in shared grief. Vivaldo comments at one point that "funerals are for the living" (124). This is correct as well as ironic, for the only reason why people are at this gathering is because of a dead person, but it is precisely because those who remain with only memories and artifacts of the dead need a communal space to acknowledge the passing.
Verbal and Situational Irony: Whiteness
Rufus rages at the unfairness of a white supremacy that has rendered the following outburst of his correct: "Any bum on the Bowery can shit all over you because maybe he can't hear, can't see, can't walk, can't fuck—but he's white!" (68). He understands that even the lowliest of white people doing the coarsest of things can get away with it, while a Black man is held to impossible standards and castigated for even the slightest error.
Situational Irony: NYC
Eric experiences a welter of emotions when he returns to New York, and realizes that "it was so familiar and public that it became, at last, the most despairingly private of cities" (230). This is a truth that anyone who has lived in the city can acknowledge—that despite the fact that there are people everywhere at all times, and that there are few boundaries on who you can be and how you can behave, it can still be a miserably lonely place. This irony is something that hits Eric hard as he returns without Yves to the place that is redolent with memories of Rufus.
Dramatic Irony: Rufus
Baldwin makes use of dramatic irony when he lets the reader know that Rufus has killed himself but has his other characters muse on what Rufus might be doing and where he might be. Cass, Richard, Vivaldo, and Ida speculate, but we know this speculation is all for naught. This increases the impact of Rufus's death, as we see that there are people who love him dearly and will be devastated to learn he is dead.
