Taxes
“After he devoted the better part of an afternoon to figuring the cleaning woman’s social security payments five different times and came up with four different numbers and finally just accepted the one number ($635.76) that he’d managed to come up with twice (the correct figure was $70.00), Enid staged a nighttime raid on his filing cabinet and relieved it of all tax files, which might have improved household efficiency had the files not found their way into a Nordstrom bag with some misleadingly ancient Good Housekeepings concealing the most germane documents underneath, whih casualty of war led to the cleaning woman’s filling out the forms herself, with Enid merely writing the checks and Alfred shaking his head at the complexity of it all.” (7)
Alfred attempting to do his cleaning lady’s taxes, coming up with the wrong number, his wife throwing all of his tax files ‘away’, and then the cleaning lady having to redo them herself, is an example of humor and irony.
Cali Lopez
When a colleague of Chip’s, a drama teacher, was fired for lying about having a degree that she didn’t, the student body protested so much that Lopez was not only rehired but given a promotion. Chip likens his situation, being fired for having relations with a student, to hers and also attempts to win back the favor of people on campus. However, his plans fail when no one steps up on his behalf, while Cali Lopez is promoted again to the college’s acting provost.
Depression
For weeks, Gary battles against Caroline about whether or not he is clinically depressed. It is only after he severely injures his hand one night that he secedes in having depression to her. “An irony, of course, was that as soon as he’d surrendered-possibly as soon as he’d confessed to his depression, almost certainly by the time he showed her his hand and she put a proper bandage on it...he not only no longer felt depressed, he felt euphoric.” (234) It is ironic that the act of admitting he has depression seems to make his depression going away, thereby making the confession untrue and unnecessary.
Investing in Stocks
Alfred’s refusal to invest in any stocks caused a bump in his and Enid’s marriage. His sons also look down on him for not being “smarter” or more ambitious about his investments and savings. Both Chip and Gary are seen investing in stocks, it being Gary’s main job. The irony comes into play, however, when investing ends up not working out as well as expected for the sons (like how Chip “takes a bath” on his stock investments), and not investing allows Alfred to keep his small amount of savings.
Alfred's Patent
Dramatic irony can be found in the situation regarding Alfred’s patent, due to the secrets being kept between characters. Alfred signs a document agreeing to sell for the $5,000 offered, but Enid hides this letter before he sends it. She tells no other characters that she did this, so everyone else continues on thinking that the patent was already sold. Gary puts a great deal of time and effort into trying to negotiate with Axon about getting shares because they sold the patent, unaware that it had yet to happen. The audience is aware of all of the characters’ actions, due to the omniscient third-person narrator, creating a situation that is grasped by the readers but not the characters (dramatic irony).
