Okay, so now where is the irony in Zaat?

Now that we've reviewed the types of irony, let's take a look at Zaat and locate some lovely examples of this literary device.

(pgs 66-67)
"President Mubarak: 'I challenge anyone to say that Egypt does not have a will of her own.'

Dr. Mahmoud Abdallah, Undersecretary of State for Agriculture and member of the People's Assembly: ' All thanks to the providers of aid to Egypt and to every aid representative working in Egypt. Would a person bit the hand that is held out to him?'

An economist: 'American aid is nothing more than loans to Egyptian companies so they can buy American products'"

In this case, we as the reader have a more developed understanding of the entire situation being discussed because we have read information from a variety of sources. Because of our understanding of the complete situation, we find it humorous when President Mubarak denies Egypt's lack of free will; we know very well form the other news clippings that Egypt has been making special accommodations for the US government, military and corporations. This is dramatic irony.

Wow, you may be saying, what a fascinating example of well-employed irony! Could there possibly be more exciting irony in one novel? You're in luck my friend, because there's more!

(pgs 91-92) There is a crash between a school bus and a train that kills seventy children on the bus. Zaat's child was supposed to be on the bus, but was home sick that day. Upon learning of the accident Zaat begins crying fiercely. One would expect this be from a mixture of relief that her child was not on the bus and also out of sympathy for the mothers who did lose their children. This is not the case though:

"Zaat announced that her howling was not out of solidarity with the mothers of the victims, but because she herself was supposed to have been one of them. And who was responsible for that? Abdel Maguid, of course, because he had left his daughters to the government schools rather than putting them in language schools, which would forever deprive them of the opportunities that the children of [Zaat's relatives] would enjoy."

Clearly, this is situational irony. Zaat completely defies the reader's expectations by blaming her husband for putting her children in the situation to potentially have died in the bus crash, rather than weeping for grief or "solidarity for the mothers." This characterizes Zaat in a new light, by showing her actions contradicting expectations, paralleling the other aspects of her personality that also run contradictory to the societal norms.

That's all the irony for now folks. (Situational irony at work here because you all thought there was going to be an example of verbal irony coming, but there isn't, haha.)