As to the thoughtless, well, not for a moment dare I suggest that forthe first few weeks they were all scared out of their wits; for I know toowell that the British civilian does not allow his perfect courage to bequestioned: only experienced soldiers and foreigners are allowed theinfirmity of fear. But they were—shall I say a little upset? They felt inthat solemn hour that England was lost if only one single traitor in theirmidst let slip the truth about anything in the universe (1914/1931, p. 19).

IRONY AND CONFLICT31With both the audience andalazonspecified, the only role left was thatof the ironist. As author, pointing out the ironies, Shaw was already cast,but he made his role explicit. Shaw specifically described himself as anIrishman who had the detached perspective of a foreigner and “perhapsa slightly malicious taste” (1914/1931, p. 19) for taking the conceit out ofEngland. Because he was Irish, his own prejudices about the war wouldbe different than “those which blind the British patriot” (p. 20).In spite of Shaw’s attention to these roles, the reactions toCommonSenseindicated that his readers did not take their assigned positions oncue. One reason was, no doubt, that many readers were indeed “scaredout of their wits.” Among the roles offered, they felt more like the scaredalazonsthan the “thoughtful” audience. In case readers did not identifywith thealazonson the first page, they soon would. As the ironies playedout in the text ofCommon Sense, Shaw described a broad range ofalazons,ultimately indicting most readers. Of course, such confrontation was typ-ically Shavian.Shaw’s introduction of his Irish identity was less characteristic, andthat move further undermined the initial delineation of roles. The thought-ful audience he needed to reach was not Irish, but English. In one stroke ofthe pen he had separated the English into the thoughtful audience and thethoughtlessalazons; in the next stroke he lumped them together as simplyEnglish.Principle 3: Irony is a Conceptual StructureWe can now define the basic structure of irony more precisely as ascript anomaly juxtaposed with analazon’sexpectations. The Junker pas-sage ofCommon Sense(1914/1931)again provides an example for analy-sis. As Shaw listed specific British government leaders who were Junkers,he highlighted Winston Churchill for his “frank anti-German pugnacity”(p. 22). Then Shaw contrasted Churchill’s pugnacious stance to the peacerhetoric that the government had actually used before the war. Shaw spec-ulated that if Churchill had conducted pre-war diplomacy, “he might quitepossibly have averted the war (and thereby greatly disappointed himselfand the British public)” (p. 32). Table 1 shows a structural analysis of thissituation, relating behaviors to goals as in event scripts, with designatedalazons.The structure of ironic thought is not the entire picture, however.Principle 4: Irony is a Perceptual DynamicTheworldisrifewithalazonyasindicatedorimpliedbycontradictions,confusion, fallacies, hypocrisy and absurdity. And every situation can bedescribed from multiple perspectives—one man’s prophecy is another’s