What happens is the opposite of what was expected, or of what someone planned, in a way that reveals something about the characters or the world of the work.
In The Death of Ivan Ilyich
In truth, it was exactly what one finds in the homes of all people who are not very rich, but who want to look like the rich, and so only look like one another.
Whoever wants to look like the rich "only looks like" the others who want the same. The result is the opposite of what was sought: distinction turns into uniformity, and the house he thinks unique is the same as all the others.
Chapters I to III: The Wake and Life, the narrator
It was all exactly as in court. Just as he, in court, took on an air before the defendants, exactly so the famous doctor took on an air before him.
Chapters IV to VII: The Illness and the Lie, the narrator
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