The narrator contemplating to thank his assailant
It is a situational irony that after Agu has been badly beaten such that blood is flowing freely from his wounds, he wants to thank his assailant for sending him to the land of the spirits for he though that he was dead. The readers would have expected that he be angry and hateful towards the violent man.
Agu’s thought that Soldiers’ life was glamorous
It is ironical that when the Commander asked Agu to join his army, he immediately thought of a nice life of patrolling the town and wearing good uniforms. In the current situation, he was seeing how wounded, tattered and hungry the soldiers of the commander’s army looked.
Irony of the Commander recruiting children as soldiers
It is ironical that the commander recruited Agu and Strika who were barely in their teens as soldiers in his army. An elder person, he should have looked out for their welfare and led them to safety. Instead, he forced them into the army and forced them to kill innocent people.
The commander ordering the brutal murder of defenseless people
It is a situational irony that the commander ordered his army to mercilessly kill people who were defenseless and starving. The group of soldiers had arrived at his camp to surrender and beg for food but instead of helping them, he brutally killed them by chopping off their body parts.
The lieutenant being a coward
It is ironical that the lieutenant in the Commander’s army was a coward yet he had been placed in a position of authority in the army. He was often behind his soldiers when they were on the battlefield and left the war to hide behind a truck. The reader would have expected him to be brave and lead his soldiers to war.
