The irony of East and West
There is an irony in the title, because it suggests that the book will be about the differences between East and West, and although books one and two of the collection offer something like that, there is also the third section which does something else entirely. Now, the reader doesn't know which set of stories the title refers to, the first two books, East and West, or the third book, East, West.
Yorick and the happy Hamlet
In literature, Hamlet and Yorick represent the darkness of human depression, and the difficulty of coming to peace with life's suffering and the fate of human death. So it's highly ironic to see a story where a happy, young Hamlet gets to play with Yorick the jester. Of course, this story is implicit in Shakespeare's Hamlet, but to actually see the scene forces the reader to see the full weight of Hamlet's inevitable loss of innocence.
The ironic auction
What's most ironic about the story At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers is that the auctioneers believe the shoes are still magical. Perhaps this is an ironic commentary on the way Western culture tends to use its entertainment as a form of religious hope.
Christopher Columbus, awaiting his response
When Columbus is waiting for Queen Isabella's decision, there is an instance of dramatic irony, because everyone and their mother knows that Columbus got the charter after all, because America was discovered by Spain in 1492. This dramatic irony is actually the point of the story, since it draws the reader's attention to the full weight of Europe's effects on America.
The Prophet's hair
The Prophet's hair is essentially the story of how a worldly, money-minded businessman is driven insane by a religious relic. The relic is allegedly a lock of hair from the prophet Muhammed, so one might think the relic would come with a blessing, but not for the worldly man. To the worldly man, the goodness of true religious experience is so jarring that it makes him literally crazy.
