Situational Irony: Scarborough
Sylvie uses a wry but sincere tone when she thinks, "just another day in Scarborough" (80) after a fight breaks out in the dollar store and the police are called. In many communities, such an altercation would be something notable for its infrequency, but Sylvie has seen it before, and so have the other customers waiting in line who just want to buy their goods and leave. This irony reinforces the sense that this community has normalized certain behaviors even if they don't want to as a result of the endemic frustration and discontent that are concomitants of poverty and neglect.
Dramatic Irony: Cindy
Cindy is full of derisive thoughts about all the immigrants who have come into Canada. She blames her son's unbrushed teeth on his going "to school with a bunch of Caribbean people" (145) and bemoans the fact that "people don't get what it's like to be one of only a few white kids in a bad school" (145). She refers to "English as a Second Language bullshit" (145) and uses stereotypes to slander different racial and ethnic groups. Yet, the dramatic irony is that while Cindy thinks that her whiteness makes her superior, she is actually a mostly reprehensible character in the story. She breeds dogs illegally; she is impatient, rude, and condescending; she is clearly uneducated; she seems to be a blase parent. She is not at all superior to anyone else, and she has the same poor white trash behavioral traits that Cory does.
Verbal Irony: Bing at Church
In his narrative of Christmas Eve mass, Bing thinks to himself that it is a shame he has to be there instead of at home, with "what seemed to be the last of the devout Catholic Filipino population of Scarborough [...] waiting for the return of Jesus" (165). Bing is being gentle, but he is poking at the irony that Jesus is not going to return.
Dramatic Irony: Johnny
There is a sad irony in Marie's reflection on a young Johnny: "His motor skills changed so fast and were so damned sharp, I thought I had a baby genius" (225). Sadly, Johnny is not a genius and turns out to be much more of a challenge than she could or would have expected. He is still her beloved child, of course, but instead of dealing with a genius, she is cleaning up the excrement left smeared on the wall by her developmentally different child.
