Irony: settling for half
Alfieri begins the play by saying that the people in Red Hook settle for half, but the play is ironically concerned with the one man who refuses to do so: Eddie, a man who wants to be wholly known and live fully.
Irony: Alfieri
As Arthur Epstein writes, "one of the elemental ironies of the play is that Alfieri, a symbol of rational thought, a man of legal training, ordered procedure, wisdom, and basic native intelligence, is also powerless to stop the onrushing tide and sweep of the horrible events in the play."
Irony: homosexuality
There is pervasive irony in the play regarding Eddie's obsession with Rodolpho's supposed homosexuality, when Eddie himself has a "deviant" love for Catherine and may even possess homosexual leanings himself.
Irony: Eddie's death
It is a tragic irony that Eddie is killed with his own knife.
