The+Importance+of+Being+Earnest

 Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde wrote //The Importance of Being Earnest.//

We will be reading the play in class as it was designed to be performed rather than read like a novel. We will be looking at the different stylistic devices in this text and how Wilde uses humour. Also we will be focusing on how this play reflects the social and individual interests of the era (very similar criteria to that which we have been using with the Romantic poetry and //Pride and Prejudice// SACs).

Find out more about him at this website:  [|Official Oscar Wilde website]

Wild Wilde Quotes!

Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much.

﻿ ﻿Once you have read the rest of the play, please complete the questions below:

 **STUDY QUESTIONS **


 * 1) 1. Wilde’s play has two settings—the city of London and the country. How does he create differences between the two settings?
 * 2) 2. What attitudes toward marriage do Wilde’s characters explore?
 * 3) 3. How does Wilde create and comment on the differences between the social classes in England as represented by Lady Bracknell and the servants in both settings?
 * 4) 4. Manuscripts are used by various characters—diaries, sermons, and a three-volume novel. What function does each have in the play? What is the role of textuality in this play-do letters and diaries have a stronger reliability or ring of truth than conversation?
 * 5) 5. What attitudes of the aristocracy can be seen in Lady Bracknell’s dialogue?
 * 6) 6. How is conflict developed in the play?
 * 7) 7. How does Wilde turn around well-known proverbs or epigrams to comment on Victorian attitudes?
 * 8) 8. Explain the pun of the title. Who is being Earnest in this play? Do Gwendolen and Cecily prefer having husbands named Ernest to having earnest husbands?
 * 9) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 5pt 0cm 0pt; text-indent: -1cm;">9. Algernon observes that: "Women only call each other sister when they have called each other a lot of other things first." How does the development of the relationship between Cecily and Gwendolen bear out this remark? What causes them to bond together? What causes them to behave competitively?

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">
 * 1) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-indent: -1cm;">10. Analyse the gender reversals in this text. Does the feminized Lord Bracknell foreshadow what Jack and Algernon may become? Are males or females more passive/dominated in this play?
 * 2) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-indent: -1cm;">11. How does dramatic irony create humour in //The Importance of Being Earnest//? Identify a handful of instances in which the audience members know more about what is going on than the characters on stage. Why does this create humour?
 * 3) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-indent: -1cm;">12. Analyse the various times that the characters eat in this play, primarily the cucumber sandwiches and the muffins. Does eating serve a primarily social or anti-social function?
 * 4) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 6pt 0cm; text-indent: -1cm;">13. Does Wilde prevent any version of true love? Does the extent to which Gwendolen and Cecily are self-centered affect your analysis?
 * 5) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 6pt 0cm; text-indent: -1cm;">14. What does the common classification of //The Importance of being Earnest// as a "comedy of manners" refer to? Could this play operate in a classless, non-hierarchical society?
 * 6) <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 12pt; margin: 6pt 0cm; text-indent: -1cm;">15. How do words take on a life of their own in this play? How does this relate to why it is it so easy for Prism to substitute her manuscript for a baby? Analyse diaries as a source of power and truth-making.
 * 7) <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">16. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Analyse the role of class in Lady Bracknell's worldview. If she more impressed by land, by nobility, or by wealth?