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Pragmatic Principles in Shaw's You Never Can Tell
Pragmatic Principles in Shaw's You Never Can Tell
Introduction
In this chapter you will be shown how the concept of foregrounding has a broader application than has been generally appreciated. Foregrounding known as significant literary deviation against the background of a non-literary norm You Never Can Tell is a comedy of manners: almost all its major characters are associated with comic exaggerations of conversational behavior.
Each character, except the irrepressible twins (and to a lesser extent MComas) finds that the eccentricity leads to discomfiture: each meets his or her come-uppance before the end of the play.