Irony of Bill Laws
Situational irony is one of the major motifs of this novel, and the position of Bill Laws at the Belmont Bevatron is a prime example. Despite holding a PhD in physics, Laws is only able to work as the tour guide at the facility due to his African-American heritage, which is particularly ironic considering he's more qualified to work on the Bevatron itself than almost everyone in the building. This clear irony is poignantly constructed, calling out the racism of PKD's time for the injustice it was.
Irony of Charlie McFeyffe
Perhaps the most starkly ironic character in the novel, chief security officer Charlie McFeyffe is investigating Jack Hamilton (more specifically, his wife Marsha) concerning potential communist ideals. This character isn't particularly notable at the novel's beginning, as this fictional setting incorporates the communist paranoia of the McCarthey era, but his irony is gradually revealed: McFeyffe is actually a raging communist, despite his position, and his ideals are far more radical than those of Marsha Hamilton.
Irony of Arthur Sylvester
On the outside, Mr. Sylvester appears to be a kindly, respectable gentleman with a solid set of morals and a penchant for justice. Once the characters enter his mind, however, they discover that he is far from the man his exterior would suggest: he is a fundamentalist extremist who believes in immediate and severe punishment for the wicked, constructing a geocentric and paranoidly theocratic cosmology inside his mind that reflects his twisted view of the world.
Irony of the Killer House
Houses are generally considered to be places of safety and rest, but the house the characters enter in the mind of the paranoid Joan Reiss is a different story. Expecting safety, Hamilton and company find themselves attacked by the house itself, using every element at its disposal to attempt to devour them as they flee for their lives. This ridiculous yet chilling irony reflects the extreme paranoia of Reiss's mind.
Irony of Edith Pritchett
Similarly to the character of Arthur Sylvester, Mrs. Edith Pritchett appears to be a kindly (albeit morally stringent) old woman, but the interior of her mind reveals an entirely different paradigm, one taken to the utmost extreme. She has abolished everything she considers to be improper or immoral, resulting in a barren and joyless world that seems even more perverted than that of Arthur Sylvester. The irony of Mrs. Pritchett is another one of PKD's harsh messages pointing out the bigotry and internal bias of much of America's population.
