Love and Marriage
One of the stated reasons that Hana is moved to take the risk of going to America is that she “wanted more for herself than her sisters had in their proper, arranged, and loveless marriages.” And yet by going to America to marry a complete stranger, she is ironically taking a very big gamble on doing just that very thing.
No Tears, Little Autumn
The title of “Tears in Autumn” proves to be an example of irony itself. With the exception of one single mention of a scene in the story taking place in November, there are no other seasonal references. In addition, no character is ever described using tears or any of the multiple synonyms for crying.
“The Bracelet”
The entire story turns out to be ironic. The narrator promises her best friend that she will never forget or take off the necklace given to her as a gift just before the family is hauled away to an internment camp. Ironically, she loses it the very first day, never to see it again.
“The Wise Old Woman”
Like may fables and fairy tales, this Japanese folk tale retold by the author twists its way toward its lesson through a terrain set with ironic land mines. The evil overlord of a small Japanese village has arbitrarily decreed the banishment of anyone over the age of 70 and that anyone turning 71 from that point forward must also go into exile. A series of invasions are staved off only as a result of the wise advice conveyed to the warlord which has secretly come from a man’s mother he keeps hidden in a room beneath house. The irony that elderly experience proves useful directly counters the rationale behind the banishment: old people are useless.
“Gombei and the Wild Ducks”
This story is another Japanese folk tale retold by the author, but rather that building to an ironic lesson, it is a story in which one irony builds upon another. The story is about a man who traps ducks and makes an unwise decision which leads to his actually turning into a duck himself. The first irony is how calmly he accepts this amazing transformation, accepting it with a decision to simply adapt by learning how to live as a duck. Then when he realizes that the transformation has come as retributive justice for his unwise decision, rather than protesting innocence, he fully admits to his guilt and accepts the punishment as just. The next layer of irony is that this confession and acceptance of guilt is what turns him back into a man. The story is sealed with the final irony that he gives up trapping ducks, becomes a farmer which produces enough surplus to feed the ducks who now recognize his property as literally a safe harbor from danger.
