One type of irony is when something happens that is contrary to what one hopes or expects. Among this story’s central ironies is that the main character is reincarnated in a form that corresponds to his past life’s failings: He failed to communicate with his wife, and now as a parrot, he has a limited vocabulary. Instead of an afterlife in which life’s problems are resolved (as many people hope or expect), the narrator returns to a world in which his problems are only exacerbated. This device extends to the question of how self-created the narrator’s problems are: There is irony in the idea of a self-made cage.

Dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows more than the characters do in a story. In the case of “Jealous Husband,” the reader and the narrator are aligned in understanding what the narrator does and says. Thus, both the reader and narrator know more than the other characters, such as his former wife and her companions. This dramatic irony allows the reader to feel the narrator’s frustration along with him over the course of the story. Whenever the parrot speaks, the reader understands what is in his head, and they see and comprehend what his former wife does not.