The irony of naïveté
Ignorance is bliss, so they say. Before she knows better, Mireille naturally believes a hyper-optimistic view about the world, which makes her easy prey for anyone with a sinister motive, and when she falls in love, she sells her soul without knowing what she's really doing. She finds out the hard way because she was insulated from pain during her childhood. Her parents probably thought they were helping her by spoiling her, but they're the reason she didn't know that life could hurt.
The irony of international politics
Instead of being honest about the challenges facing Senegal, diplomats and politicians serve their personal interests, and even though the Europeans are visiting in the name of diplomacy, the thought of their daughter with an African man disgusts the diplomats.
The irony of romance
Instead of leading to marital bliss, marriage in this context means terrifying unfortunate and unimaginable mistreatment and betrayal. Instead of finding herself finally joined with someone else, Mireille finds herself more alone than she ever imagined possible.
The irony of infanticide
The reader is left with an ethical dilemma when Mireille assassinates her own child in an attempt to spare it from the difficult life ahead, but although her reasoning seems fair enough, she's still murdering a child, and the depiction of that is riddled with paradox and irony, the mother taking life away instead of giving new life. It's an interesting depiction of hopelessness.
The irony of misogyny and feminism
Instead of women collecting together to resist their oppression in Senegal, the novelist shows the way the broken system makes women into enemies by making them compete for limited resources by betraying their greater interests as a whole.
