Irony in There There

Tommy Orange’s novel There There provides a platform for Native American voices, specifically making nuisances visible in urban and youth communities. The Big Oakland Powwow as the culminating spot for all the characters to overlap is a use of irony because Orange’s intention is to show that Native Americans are not a monolith and yet he has them all participate in one traditional event. Nevertheless, each individual character has a unique identity and experience.  

The first half of Orange’s novel contains instances of irony, and it seems inevitable that there will be a culmination in the plot and characters that will probably contain further ironical connotations. Jacquie Red Feather and Harvey both being at the conference supports the claim that there will be more ironical moments later in the novel. It appears that many of these characters have intersecting stories and therefore there will be moments of irony or meetings that go directly against what is expected to happen.  

Compared to other humorous texts, Orange’s novel tends not to be laugh out loud and if the reader does laugh or find something funny it is usually closely tied to a disturbing truth. Many of these moments are a brief line or two like, “We’d been over there to celebrate not celebrating Thanksgiving” (45) and “She treated it all like it was something they could decide for themselves when they were old enough. Like drinking or driving or smoking or voting. Indianing” (128). In these instances, Orange uses blunt words and phrasing to make a point about the ironies of living as a Native American. Most of it revolves around the fact that their histories and identities were sabotaged and robbed from them so that their modern lives exist in contrast to some stereotypical image of a Native American.  

Orange’s instances of irony force the reader to reflect on the disconnect they feel between what they are reading and reality. In these personal vignettes Orange debunks stereotypes about Native Americans while simultaneously honoring and displaying cultural aspects such as powwows.