Health Care
The sickness and pervasive presence of potentially fatal disease in the era before inoculation, vaccine and pharmaceuticals is presented in an ironic way relative to the lifestyle of the modern world. The casual awareness and acceptance that death is lingering in every shadow has the effect of intensifying unity and appreciation in comparison to the selfishness and disposable materialism of living in a world where such terrors no longer apply.
Failure of the Gift
The flaw in the family’s self-proclaimed Gift of seeing into the future is ironically undone toward the end of the novel when Abigail, equipped with the knowledge of the future, fails in her attempt to transcend time and desperately convey a warning. The irony of the knowing the future is that this knowledge doesn’t necessary translate into an ability to change it.
The Prophecy
The prophecy associated with the Gift is that a member of the Bow family will due young. Since Gibbie is chronically sick (or so it appears) it is assumed he will be the unfortunate soul. Ironically, however, the victim of the prophecy turns out to be the least likely member of the Bow children to suffer the fate: the strapping young sailor Judah.
Two-Layered Irony
The not-so-sickly Gibbie at one point discusses his own funeral in a way that is notably described as being pleasurable to him. This sets the stage for a funereal fantasia that is dual-layered in its irony: not only is Gibbie aware he’s not as deathly sick as he appears, but it will turn out that he actually lives to a ripe old age:
“Six black horses I’ll have…But my coffin will be white because I’m just an innocent child.”
Miss Thingo, II
The novel opens telling how Lynette Kirk changed her name to Abigail on tenth birthday when her father abandoned the family for another woman that Abigail dismissively derides with the nickname “Miss Thingo.” Her intense of feelings of hatred directed this “other woman” will ironically boomerang on herself through her travel back in time to Victorian Era Australian when it is she who becomes the “other woman” threatening a relationship that is considered to be all but a legally binding engagement.
