Have a Cake and a Kid
Treehorn’s mom seems unusually preoccupied with the cake she is baking in the oven when her son informs her that his clothes seem to have stretched so much that he is actually tripping over them. Even when he finally suggests that he thinks the cause may be that he is shrinking rather than the clothing stretching, the uppermost thing on her mind continues to be the cake and whether it was pleasing to her husband. When both parents finally notice that Treehorn does, indeed, appear to be smaller than he used to be, her reaction is “Oh, dear. First it was the cake, and now it’s this. Everything happens at once.” It is at this point that her obsession with the cake reaches the point of irony. She genuinely and quite sincerely equates the stunning news of her son’s defying the natural progression of maturation and aging with a cake not turning out as well as expected.
Alternative Facts
Before the arrival of the post-truth world of the USA in 2016, the term alternative facts was called opinion. Treehorn’s father assertively states opinion as fact when he declares “Nobody shrinks.” The irony is not only that Treehorn actually is shrinking, but once Treehorn’s father decides to actually look at his son, literally the very next words out of mouth contradicts himself when he admits that his son is shrinking.
Treehorn will be Treehorn
One of the underlying ironic structures of the story is that despite becoming the victim of a most unusual scientific phenomenon of being a child who has actually started growing smaller, Treehorn remains almost heroically unflappable about his change. Before he started shrinking, his life consisted of eating cereal and sending away for box-top offers, watching TV, playing games, and going to school. Ironically, not only does this routine remain unchanged, but his emotional state during this routine remains unaffected. The only impact on Treehorn at all in his smaller state of being is physical.
A Whistle That Makes No Sound
The latest offer on a cereal box-top that intrigues Treehorn is one for a dog whistle. He doesn’t actually have a dog, but that is of little significance to his desire for the whistle. He just thinks it would be cool to have a whistle that only dogs could hear. Treehorn’s desire for the whistle is such that he would still like to have it even if turns out dogs can’t hear it, either. In other words, Treehorn’s desire for the whistle is ironically independent of whether it actually fulfils the purpose.
The Principal
The Principal of Treehorn’s school is almost irony personified. He tries to relieve Treehorn’s anxiety by telling him he’s not there to be punished even though Treehorn expresses no anxiety at all. He then proceeds to clarify that he is not there to dole out punishment but to guide everyone in the school toward solving their problems. Treehorn responds that he does not have a problem. Nevertheless, he ends the meeting by telling Treehorn that if he has any more problems to solve, he will help him once again. So, he succeeds in ironically having solved a problem that doesn’t exist in order to soothe Treehorn’s anxiety about being punished by not solving a problem Treehorn was never anxious about being punished for.
