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Situational Irony
Chapter 5 - Hope Against Hope
Explanation and Analysis:
The style of the novel is informal and confessional, emulating the voice of a sarcastic teen's diary. Consequential statements and questions about social justice are often hidden in off-hand comments. One example occurs in Chapter 5, when Junior describes his surprise that Mr. P forgives him for throwing a book in his face:
After I smashed him in the face, I figured Mr. P wanted to hire a hit man. Well, maybe that’s taking it too far. Mr. P didn’t want me dead, but I don’t think he would have minded if I’d been the only survivor of a plane that crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
At the very least, I thought they were going to send me to jail.
This passage starts out with absurd hyperbole. It is difficult to imagine that even a bad teacher would hire a hit man to kill a student. Sleepy Mr. P seems especially unlikely to go to such lengths to get revenge on Junior. Junior immediately acknowledges that he is being dramatic and suggests that it might be more realistic to expect that Mr. P wants him to be stranded on a desert island after a horrific plane crash. This expectation, too, seems like too much. Mr. P may be angry, but he surely has other things to think about, besides such elaborate and maniacal fantasies for Junior's comeuppance. The hyperbolic language is humorous, and it also helps make Junior a believable 14-year-old narrator. Developmentally, it makes sense for him to believe that other people in his life are thinking more about him than they actually are.
The passage swings from silly to serious with Junior's statement that, "At the very least, I thought they were going to send me to jail." This fear, unlike the others, is grounded in reality. American Indians are massively over-represented among incarcerated people, meaning that they are policed more heavily and prosecuted more severely than the White people who make up the majority of the U.S. population. Even on reservations, where tribal law is supposed to have jurisdiction, there are plenty of loopholes through which American Indians can easily end up entangled with the U.S. court system. Junior's fear that he is going to jail might read as more hyperbolic in a White student's diary, but Mr. P could easily push for Junior to be locked up. Alexie does not spell out this double standard, instead allowing Junior's fear speak for itself. By letting Junior write in the style of a real teen, then, Alexie makes a powerful implicit critique of systemic racism.
Related Themes:
