Theme
What is Wilde saying about marriage in this play? Give an example
Marriage is a social transaction rather than a romantic choice (about status, family, money).
The idea that Lady Bracknell interrogates Jack like a business interview
Where was Jack discovered as a baby?
In a handbag at Victoria Station
Read the line after Jack tells Lady Bracknell he smokes: "I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind"
What technique is Wilde using here?
What is the effect on the audience?
Exaggeration or Irony
Wilde exaggerates the Victorian ideas mocking upper class priorities hoping to get the audience to laugh at how trivial her values are
What does it mean when a writer says the opposite of what they mean for comedic effect?
Give an example
Irony
Lady Bracknell when interrogating Jack
Wilde often uses stage directions to show irony or contrast. When Cecily and Gwendolen are comparing notes there is a stage direction where Gwendolen "examines diary through her lorgnette carefully". What is the effect?
Gwendolen inspecting Cecily's diary as though it were a legal document. The lorgnette is a weapon of class condescension, and the adverb carefully suggests scrutiny. Wilde uses the physical prop to show Gwendolen performing superiority while the content of what she's reading (a teenage girl's romantic fantasies) undercuts her entirely.
What is Wilde saying about class? Give an example.
Wilde suggests the Victorian upper class judge people entirely based on social position, wealth, and family name-- not on character or morality. This is shown to be absurd and hypocritical.
Ex. Lady Bracknell rejects Jack due to his familial status
What is the name Wilde gives to Jack and Algernon's strategy of a fictional alter ego to escape social obligations?
Bunburying
"Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone"
What technique does Wilde use here?
How does the structure of the sentence create a comic effect?
Uses this simile to exaggerate and mock Victorian structures. This is an elaborate simile to make an absurd argument sound sophisticated. The idea is that ignorance should be preserved.
What is the term when the audience knows something that the characters do not?
Give an example
Dramatic Irony
When Cecila and Gwendolen were fighting over Ernest, but the audience knew it was two separate people
When Jack arrives saying that his brother Ernest has died, Miss Prism says "What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it" and "As a man sows, so shall he reap". What is the effect?
Uses comedy to show status over human feeling
What is Wilde saying about identity in this play?
Give an example
Wilde suggests identity is a performance-- people construct false versions of themselves to escape social rules. Wilde implies that "respectable" Victorian society is built on lies. Ex. Bunburying
What habit does Lady Bracknell approve of when interrogating Jack?
Smoking
After Jack delivered his long, embarrassed explanation of his origins, Lady Bracknell responds with, "A handbag?"
How does Wilde use contrast and sentence structure to create comedy here?
Wilde contrasts Jack's long explanation with a single two-word exclamation. Her reaction focuses on the object not the situation showing her absurd priorities.
What is satire?
Writing that uses humor and irony to criticize society
When Jack announces Ernest is dead he says "Dead!" and "Quite Dead" whereas the other characters have munch longer responses. What does the contrast reveal about Jack's character and the effect on the audience?
Humor because you would expect Jack to be sad.
Shows the lack of emotion
What is Wilde saying through the way his characters treat trivial things as serious and serious things as trivial? Give an example.
Wilde suggests that Victorian upper-class has lost its moral perspective-- it obsesses over irrelevant details while ignoring genuinely important things. This exposes the hollowness of polite society.
Ex. Cucumber sandwiches
Who is Jack's real mother?
Lady Bracknell's sister
Lady Bracknell says, "I cannot allow my only daughter--the fruit of my womb, so to speak--to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel"
How does Wilde use exaggeration and contrast in this line to comment on Lady Bracknell?
Wilde exaggerates her language showing the contrast between her maternal language and reducing Jack to a parcel makes fun of her obsession with social form over human feeling
What type of play is this?
A farce (comedic play that aims to entertain the audience primarily through high-energy laughter, relying on absurd situations, physical humor, and exaggerated, stereotypical characters rather than realistic plots or character development)
How does Wilde present deception throughout the play?
What is Wilde saying about education and knowledge in this play? Give an example.
Wilde criticizes the upper class's fear of an educated lower class. Wilde implies that ignorance is something the upper class attempts to protect themselves.
The character of Miss Prism, Cecily's governess, represents the failure of education. She is supposed to be educating Cecily, yet she is more concerned with appearance, is intellectually pretentious, and famously lost her manuscript in a handbag.
In Act II, Algernon and Cecily have a conversation where it is revealed they are already "engaged" in their minds, despite never having met until that day. They act as if their fabricated, ignorant, or shallow romantic fantasies are real.
How does Algernon discover Jack's secret?
He finds an inscription in a cigarette case addressed to "Uncle Jack" from "Cecily".
Think of the entire Lady Bracknell and Jack interrogation scene. Lady Bracknell asks questions and Jack answers. How does Wilde use this question-answer structure to show a contrast between the two characters?
Wilde gives Lady Bracknell all the questions showing she controls the direction, pace, and judgement. Jack can only respond. This structural imbalance shows the real power dynamics of Victorian society where wealth and status give certain people the right to judge others.
What is hypocrisy? Give an example
the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues, or feelings that one does not actually possess, often characterized by behavior that contradicts one's expressed standards
the last line
How does Wilde use the whole play to explore the gap between appearances and reality in Victorian society?
characters construct false identities to navigate social expectations
Wilde uses the pun in the title and the obsession with name "Ernest" to mock the societal values