Fear Leads to What, Now?
According to the very wise sage Yoda, fear leads to anger. And so and so forth until you arrive at your final destination of suffering. According to the narrator, however, fear leads to a much more ironic destination: Yoda. Sort of.
“From my father, I inherited the fear that resided in his coal-black eyes, and from this fear I’ve gained wisdom. Fear placed books in my hands and led me to search for the answers.”
The Big One-Uh-Oh
There certainly must be a little irony to the fact that the narrator’s somewhat debilitating bout with Tourette’s begins the day after she turns ten. Let’s face it, turning ten is the first major birthday milestone in our lives—the big move into double digits—and usually it is expected to be a harbinger of positive change. So, irony wins out in this case.
The Virgin Mary?
At a mental institution later in the book, the narrator is pretty much tortured in every conceivable way by Wilma. So, of course, it is extremely ironic when Wilma is chosen to play the Virgin Mary in a pageant:
“Once the pious Virgin Mary, she now had changed. Her features were sharp and seething; her body was oozing hatred.”
Mrs. Wilma Lucifer Satan
Wilma doesn’t just seethe and ooze hatred. That would be enough, surely to cement her villainy, but a ghastly level of irony is layered over her entire presence. In just one simple sentence, the narrator conveys the full dimensionality of how malevolence works its dark magic in the world:
“So completely dark was her evil that like a magnet she drew me to her.”
“You polecat of a dog!”
The above phrase is spewed out venomously by the narrator toward another nasty character, though one operating on a lower level of malevolence than Wilma. The phrase is uttered in response to an insult and so, naturally, little Icy Sparks is inspired to fight fire with fire. The problem is ignorance: “I didn’t know if those words meant anything nasty, but I like the sound of them.” Ironically, in this case it is ignorance and not wisdom borne from fear that allows the narrator to find the most absolutely perfect words for the occasion.
