irony in The Moon is Down

Irony is a great technique I think can really add more interest to any book. "The Moon is Down" by John Steinbeck is no exception to this. I really like books with irony especially when it is humorous and can break the tension. There are three types of irony: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony. Only one of the three types of irony are used in this book. This would be dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the reader or audience knows something that is going to happen that the characters in the book do not. There are three specific situations that I recall in "The Moon is Down" that uses this irony. The first situation was between Molly Morden and Lieutenant Tonder. This is the part of the book where Lieutenant Tonder visits Molly in attempt to start a friendship with her. Molly is at first scared that he is there to take advantage of her, but she realizes soon that this is not the case. Molly knows she has control over him and uses this to her own advantage. When she hides the scissor shears in her dress to kill Tonder, only the reader knows what she plans on doing, leaving the lieutenant clueless that he is about to be murdered. Another situation where dramatic irony is used is when the blue parachutes first arrive. The townspeople are not hesitant at all to pick them up and so the reader knows what is in them and their purpose but the soldiers do not. They are very hesitant to even go near them and think they are bombs at first. "One of the little parachutes came down in the street ahead of the patrol and the sergeant said, 'Careful! It's a time bomb' " (Steinbeck, 90). This gift leads to my last example. At the very end of the book, when they are talking to Mayor Orden, and they think if they kill the mayor, the townspeople will stop. What the readers know, but the soldiers do not, is that the townspeople are already in action and then they hear the sound of the dynamite going off.

Steinbeck, John. The Moon Is Down, by John Steinbeck,... Stockholm: Continental Book C°, 1949. Print.