The use of irony as a subversive element in suffrage theatre

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to explore how the use of comic irony in suffrage plays might be understood as a subversive element. Pro-suffrage playwrights wrote their propaganda plays in such a way as to ensure that they were funny, mocking and entertaining, whilst at the same time critiquing the social situation of women. Comic irony was used as a tool to convince audiences of the legitimate grievances of women through the use of humour, thereby turning irony into a subversive tool.