Mrs. Davidson is Worried Because Her Husband Hasn’t Come Home (Dramatic Irony)
After Dr. Macphail assesses Davidson's body on the shore, he returns to Horn's boarding house, where his wife is awake and dressed. She tells him that Mrs. Davidson is worried because Davidson left at two a.m. and hasn't returned. In this instance of dramatic irony, the reader knows before Mrs. Macphail and Mrs. Davidson that the missionary will never return to his wife.
Davidson Tries to Commit Adultery (Situational Irony)
Throughout the story, Davidson passionately and righteously speaks of his accomplishments as a Christian missionary in Samoa. He considers it his duty on Earth to do the Lord's work by bringing lost souls back to God. He grows ecstatic and joyful at the idea of people like Fred Ohlson and Miss Thompson having to suffer punishment for their "erring" ways, and believes they ought to be grateful for the opportunity to suffer at God's hands. Despite all of Davidson's moral superiority, at the end of the story it becomes clear that he killed himself out of shame after trying to commit adultery with Miss Thompson. He had broken her will and she accepted his Godly company; however, when she tells Dr. Macphail that all men are pigs, that they are all the same, Dr. Macphail understands that she is referring to Davidson, who broke not only her faith in him but any claim to his Christian righteousness.
