All 9 Uses of

irony

in

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Czech towns were decorated with thousands of hand-painted posters bearing ironic texts, epigrams, poems, and cartoons of Brezhnev and his soldiers, jeered at by one and all as a circus of illiterates.†
Chpt 1 (definition 2)

He could just hear her asking him ironically why he didn't prefer Sabina's bed.†
Chpt 3 (definition 2)

She fixed him with a long, careful, searching stare that was not devoid of irony's intelligent sparkle.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)

When the woman who looked like a giraffe and a stork smiled, her eyes screwed up, and everything she said seemed full of irony or secret messages.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)

The odd asymmetry of the woman who looked like a giraffe and a stork continued to excite his memory: the combination of the flirtatious and the gawky; the very real sexual desire offset by the ironic smile; the vulgar conventionality of the flat and the originality of its owner.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)

"Don't come any closer." It was a strange thing to say. Tomas was not sure whether to interpret it as a sincere, friendly warning ( Watch out, we're being filmed; if you talk to us, you may be hauled in for another interrogation ) or as irony ( If you weren't brave enough to sign the petition, be consistent and don't try the old-pals act on us ).
Chpt 5 (definition 1)

irony = saying one thing while meaning something else

To clear the air Tomas came out with as sprightly a "Fine, just fine!" as he could muster, but he immediately felt that no matter how hard he tried (in fact, because he tried so hard), his "fine" sounded bitterly ironic.
Chpt 5 (definition 1) *

ironic = saying one thing while meaning the opposite

…on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree Be fruitful and multiply.†
Chpt 6 (definition 2)

In a flash of insight Franz saw how laughable they all were, but instead of cutting him off from them or flooding him with irony, the thought made him feel the kind of infinite love we feel for the condemned.
Chpt 6 (definition 2) *

irony = when what happens is very different than what might be expected