The Characters--IofBE
He is Jack’s friend and Gwendolyn’s cousin who pretends to be Ernest to woo Cecily.
Who is Algernon?
This term describes leading a double life for pleasure or convenience.
What is Bunburying?
The play contrasts sincere emotion with the pursuit of wealth and status in this institution.
What is Marriage?
She is the manipulative and emotionally complex protagonist of the play.
Who is Hedda Gabler?
This object becomes a symbol of Hedda's power and control, and is used in a climactic act.
What are Hedda's father's pistols?
She is obsessed with marrying someone named Ernest and represents Victorian ideals of romance.
Who is Gwendolyn?
Jack was adopted after being found in this unusual place.
What is a handbag in a cloakroom at Victoria Station?
This character is the most shallow and static, shown through her obsession with names, diaries, and social status.
Who is Cecily?
This academic is Hedda’s husband and is more interested in research than passion.
Who is George Tesman?
This character claims the "child" is destroyed when the manuscript is lost.
Who is Thea Elvsted?
This character is Jack’s ward and keeps a diary of her romantic fantasies.
Who is Cecily?
This is the moment Algernon learns about Jack’s ward.
When he sees Cecily’s name in Jack’s cigarette case.
Wilde uses fashion, speech, and manners to show this theme of the play.
What is Style vs. Content.
A brilliant but troubled writer and former lover of Hedda.
Who is Eilert Lovborg?
This symbolizes creative potential and is destroyed by fire.
What is Lovborg's manuscript?
This formidable woman values wealth, status, and social propriety above all.
Who is Lady Bracknell?
Lady Bracknell opposes Jack marrying her daughter because he lacks this.
What is a proper family background or lineage?
The story reveals that love and this are often at odds in Victorian society.
What is marriage?
She is Tesman’s sweet, self-sacrificing aunt who raised him like a son.
Who is Aunt Julia?
This happens offstage at the end of the play, shocking the other characters.
What is Hedda’s suicide?
She lost a baby in a handbag and wrote a three-volume novel instead of watching a child.
Who is Miss Prism?
Lady Bracknell’s greatest concern in evaluating Jack as a suitor.
What is social status and family background?
The pun at the heart of the play that underscores its satire of Victorian morality.
What is the pun on “Ernest” and “earnest”?
This character ultimately outmaneuvers Hedda by taking control of her darkest secret.
Who is Judge Brack?
Hedda’s struggle with boredom and conformity represents this major theme.
What is the role of women in society?