The Western concept of irony originated in ancient Greek theaterwhere two stock characters were theeironand thealazon. Theeiron,orironist, understated her true position as a technique for deflating her nat-ural prey, thealazon, or “victim” of the irony, who overstated his position,abilities, etc. (Aristotle, 1990; Frye, 1957/1990; Muecke, 1969). Irony, thus,originated as a role. In later usage, the concept expanded to include thetechniques the ironist uses and situations that reflect her perceptions.Muecke (1969) contended that, even for 20th-century concepts of situ-ational irony, the roles of ironist, victim and observer were still necessary.But those roles were not always distinct. Often the ironist was abstractlyimplied as nature or fate, and the “victim” not even in the room. Twopeople alone could comment wryly about “British Junkers” without those
accused ever hearing the comments. The mere fact that particular Britonswould not perceive the irony—or are simplyimaginedas not getting it—isenough to fulfill the “victim” requirement. Indeed, “victim” brings withit allusions that do not always fit thealazon’srole. The bottom line of thatrole is that the person or group be na ̈ıvely unaware of the possibility ofthe irony (Muecke, 1969). This is a type of conceit that can come frominnocence, prejudice or over-confidence in a na ̈ıf, a buffoon or a villain.To make it all a bit more complex, the roles of ironist andalazonsome-times overlap. Muecke and others (e.g., Frye, 1957/1990; Wilde, 1981) havelinked irony to broader world views. In Muecke’s typology, irony can serveas a corrective to fallacies, hypocrisy, prejudice, ignorance or simple inno-cence in a world viewed as fundamentally logical. Muecke called irony inthat contextSpecific Irony. In contrast, the world itself, or aspects of it, can beseen as fundamentally and inescapably ironic. Muecke called irony in thatworld viewGeneral Irony. The General Ironist has a distinctive point of viewbut still shares the predicament of thealazonswho are unaware of the irony.The ironist/audience andalazonroles can also be described in relationto event scripts. The observers (ironist/audience) see the ironic anomalythe script, whether or not they themselves are implicated. Thealazondoesnot. Thealazonis key because script anomalies may be simply surprisingor incomprehensible—not ironic—without the concept that someonewould not “get” the irony (Muecke, 1969). The existence of thealazondis-tinguishes the structure of irony, provides its judgmental edge and givesironic thought its particular creative significance. The ironic insight is notsimply idiosyncratic. It is significant specifically because it underminesexisting and plausible assumptions about the situation. The originality isinherently juxtaposed to at least someone’s beliefs in the domain.The roles inherent to ironic situations were also important to Shaw’sthinking about WWI. In the first two pages ofCommon Sense(1914/1931)Shaw, ever the director, laid out the key roles for the stream of ironicpredicaments and solutions that he would be describing. In the openinglines he defined the audience by directly addressing the “more thoughtfulof us” (p. 19) with the imperative that it was time to think sanely aboutthe war. This audience was then distinguished from “the thoughtless”(alazons) with a generous dose of verbal irony