Who is who on Shaw’s Islands? Reversals in “John Bull’s Other Island”

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to show that the use of reversals (as paradoxes concerning rhetorics, and as the deconstruction of stereotypes and prejudices) is the very means that makes G.B. Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island a modern drama, where modern stands for fragmentation (of the world), textualization and self-referentiality. This study focuses on two kinds of reversals, though they can be detected far more in the play. These two are reversals built in the plot and reversals of stereotypes concerning the stage Irishman and, –Englishman figures.