Quoting from authors that they have not read
It is a situational irony that while interviewing people, Jerome and Sylvie would quote C. Wright Mills, William Whyte and Herbert Hyman. They did so to impress the interviewees, yet they had not read more than three pages of the authors’ works.
Big dreams with no actions to fulfill them
Jerome and Sylvie have big dreams to acquire wealth and live a glamorous lifestyle. They dream of being in the mansions of the people they are interviewing, they dream of owing their boats, eating their expensive food and wearing the most expensive articles of clothing. They did this even though they did not work to pursue their dreams.
Leap to expensive clothes
The narrator says that the Jerome and Sylvie spent their salary on expensive clothing. They used up all their salary on clothes. This is a situational irony because they did not consider their basic needs first before buying very expensive clothes that finished up their income.
Window-shopping for hours
Jerome and Sylvie would spend endless hours window-shopping. They would enter stores and antique shops to admire the expensive clothes or jewelry that they could not afford. This is ironical because they should have been working to achieve their dreams of fulfilling their expensive tastes rather than spending all their time looking through items in the shopping center.
Critism of the L'Express Newspaper
It is ironical that Jerome, Sylvie and their friends bashed the L’Express newspaper yet it was the only newspaper that they could afford and that catered to their information news. The newspaper advertised property that was in their price range but they wanted those newspapers and magazines that advertised property that they could not afford.
