The Importance of Being Earnest

By Oscar WildeAct I1. Give examples of different types of humor and how they work (quote and comment)2. Quote statements made about marriage by different characters and comment on the impressions given.3. The play is subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” List words and phrases where trivial events are treated with overblown seriousness. Identify the comic methods.4. What ideas do you gain about “society” from your reading of the First Act? Find quotations relating to status, behavior and morality, and culture.

Act II

1. In the scene between Algernon and Cecily, the play becomes more farcicial -- the actions and dialogue of Cecily and Algernon become more and more unrealistic and ridiculous. List below the comments made by Cecily, what they mean, and their effect.

2. What is the role of the “muffin scene” at the end of Act II? What does Wilde do in terms of tone and what does the scene do to reinforce some of the themes of the play?

Act III1. In Act III, Lady Bracknell tries to ascertain whether Cecily is worthy of her nephew, much in the same way she did with Jack. What impresses Lady Bracknell most about Cecily’s qualifications? Be specific, using quotes.2. What point is Wilde making in this portion of the play?3. Pages 48-49 involve a great deal of triviality and the serious treatment of the trivial and the trivial treatment of the serious. In what ways does the dialogue on these two pages reinforce the idea of the triviality of things?4. As the play nears its conclusion, the “loose ends” begin to be wrapped up. What confusions and resolutions exist in each of the following?:

why does Lady Bracknell ask “Where is that baby?”

whose handbag was the baby in?

who does Jack initially believe is his mother?

what SHOULD have been in the handbag?

who was Jack’s father?

who is Jack’s brother?

what is Jack’s name?

5. What is the significance of the title?

6. How far would you agree with the view that The Importance of Being Earnest is “a play without a moral, existing for its own sake, for its own perfection, communicating no message”?

LANGUAGE:Carefully crafted casualness of the characters’ speech conveys serious meaning through the use of satire, paradox, and the double meaning of words. Through language, Wilde creates a delicate social critique that is at once absurdly comic and painfully truthful.Satire can be found in Wilde’s use of sarcasm and irony to expose the false pretensions of his characters and his society as a whole.Irony involves the contrast between the elegance of the characters’ language and the literal meaning of their words, combined with their often absurd actions and behaviors.The distance between language and action is made comic by the triviality of the action and the serious, yet polite verbal reaction to it (ie: Cecily and Gwendolen at tea)

Use of paradox fuses contradictory items such as Jack’s notion of a “passionate celibacy” and Algernon’s ambition to “work hard at nothing” in a way that allows these contradictions to become humorous through repetition.

Wilde uses paradox throughout the play to expose the poses and hypocrisies of the character’s actions as well as a manner of verbally illustrating the “doubleness” of the play as a whole -- showing the complex parody beneath a trivial surface.

Double meaning of words controls plot and details of dialogue. (Ernest/earnest; adopting two different identities)

**Notes from Wilkins, Robin. “On Language.” Study Guide: The Importance of Being Earnest. Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Department of Dramatic Arts, The School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, 2004.