The type of irony we now have to consider depends for its effects on the superior knowledge of the listeners, aware of a truth withheld from a character. This category contrasts with the irony of the narrator, at least with those cases where the narrator manipulates the responses of his audience and, by pretending ignorance or by a teasing uninformativeness, denies his listeners facts of the narrative. The one type keeps the audience in ignorant suspense, as much at a loss as the character himself, whilst the other places them on a vantage-point not shared by the actor. Between them, these two types create a disturbingly shifting perspective, now flattering our sense of superiority and now undermining our certainty by bringing it home to us how much we do not know.

If we regard dramatic irony in its own right, we have to ask how the listener is put in his position of superiority. The answer to this depends on how we understand dramatic irony. Three factors are called for. In the first place, there must be a tension within the narrative, one character must be at loggerheads with another (be he man, God or any other abstract power) or at variance with circumstances.