Brackets
At the center of the novel is a boxing tournament in which winners advance to a championship final from a larger starting field. At one point, one of the characters notes that “the tournament bracket looks like a children’s nursery mobile. The prongs of the bracket rotate, waver, and scramble.” That such a brutal competition would bring to mind a common item of décor in the room of infants and toddlers is a deeply ironic counterpoint.
Hand-Clapping Games
Similar to the bracket looking like a hanging mobile is the comparison of boxing to popular hand-clapping games played mostly by younger girls. A significant part of one chapter is devoted to a comparison and contrast essay on the relationship. The irony originates from the contention that the games are similar to boxing because they both require sharp reflexes and girl-to-girl physical contact. The narrator observes with a note of sardonic irony, however, that the biggest contrast between the two is that in hand-clapping games there is no competitive element result in a winner and a loser.
The Most Important Moment of Their Lives
Glimpses into how the future turned out for the boxers reveal the impact of the tournament on their lives. This may be the greatest irony of the story. For most, this thing that was the most exciting moment in their lives at the time has had no impact—positive or negative—on how their lives turned out. In fact, for many, the tournament has become almost completely forgotten.
Bob’s Boxing Palace
The boxing tournament is being held in a Reno, Nevada venue with the grandly optimistic name of Bob’s Boxing Palace. “The outside of Bob’s Boxing Palace looks like Styrofoam, like you could sink your nails into it and chip off a little bit of the building and make the chipped-off bits blend in with a bowl of cottage cheese.” The revelation that the place chosen to host the best young female boxers in the world calls itself a palace but looks like a Styrofoam façade is an irony that says much about the reality of the economic inequality suffered by female athletes competing in the very same sport as men.
Bob
The irony of Bob’s Palace is a reflection of the irony of the man himself. “Bob is also a coach, but, as a rule, doesn’t coach women. He has no particular fighter he’d like to see win. His gym was just the right location for the tournament to take place.” The owner of the location hosting the tournament may be well be the least emotionally involved person in Reno. His attitude toward coaching female boxers may be a kind of toxic ironic ideology or it could just as well be that he is simply a misogynistic jerk.
