The irony of suicide
By exiting her private turmoil through suicide, May's mother passes that suffering onto her daughter unwittingly. In a moment of pure panic and emotional torture, the mother made a decision with permanent consequences, and in a way, the struggle for mental health is inherited by May, instead of the hope and power that could have been inherited if May's mother had found hope.
Aunty's ironic problem
In an attempt to pretend she is luckier than she is, Aunty demonstrates her bad luck by gambling her money away, making her situation more dire and emotionally desperate than it needed to be. She symbolizes the true masochism of addictions, because by conceding to repeat a behavior that gives a little happiness in a way that isn't quite ethical, she worstens her own experience of life drastically.
The irony of alcohol
Although alcohol feels like it is healing wounds, it actually embalms the wounds and prevents them from healing. Alcoholism is to literally embalm one's self with a harsh solvent, which is the ironic opposite of living forever. Instead of watching the grief process slowly healing the wounds of life, Aunty's alcoholism mummifies her mental health crises in a chronic way. She does not move out of the season of "denial" in her grief, because she does not have to solve her problems when she is drunk.
The irony of community
The effects of community members are real and serious, we learn from this novel. This novel makes the reader desperately wish the mother had not committed suicide, which is a reminder that ironically, when a person feels most private in their suffering, that is when they are most likely to harm their community by doing something because of their own suffering, not caring how it affects others. What might have saved the mother was sacrificial love.
