Marquand uses irony to convey his satire and point of view. In The Late George Apley the letters of the protagonist, undercut by the comments of the even more conservative editor, combine with the audience's knowledge of such events as the First World War and the stock market crash for dramatic irony. Apley himself is a naive narrator who is unaware of presenting himself as bumbling, insular, and, in the view of many of his fellow Bostonians (especially the Irish politicians with whom he must share control of his city), probably mad and certainly inconsequential. Both Apley, because of his naivete, and the editor Horatio Willing, because of his duplicity, are unreliable narrators. But intrusions by such characters as the Apley children are among the reliable voices that help clarify the events described with pathetic self-revelation by Apley himself.