Algernon Moncrieff Quotes Flashcards
“A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.”
Enforces Algernon’s negative attitude towards marriage, and shows his little belief in it (if you can’t escape marriage at times, it will be a misery). Shows his sarcastic tone throughout the first act.
“I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.. ..If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.”
Shows that Algernon has an aristocratic view of marriage functioning as a business proposal, and remains with a bachelor attitude throughout.
“Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right…it is a great truth.”
Girls flirt with men they find attractive, this is suggesting that women marry men they are not necessarily attracted to, but are presumably well respected. Gender roles at the time would also have deemed it unacceptable for women to be seen flirting in public.
“Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.”
The moral status of the fictional ‘Ernest’ has undergone a change here-when Jack is ‘Ernest’, he is this respaceble man about town, yet when Algernon is posing as ‘Ernest’ for Cecily, he is associated with mischief and ‘scrapes’.
“I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that business.”
Again reflecting Algernon’s view on marriage and the idea that marriage is more of a business proposition/transaction used to gain status. He doesn’t see marriage as a positive thing that is done out of love.
“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
In reference to Gwendolen, this comment does almost foreshadow the future of the play, because eventually the audience sees that Gwendolen is becoming a lot like her mother, for example making absurd categorical announcements, and being generally overbearing. This comment is an example of a Wildean epigram.
What is a Wildean epigram?
A statement that briefly and elegantly turns some piece of received or conventional wisdom on its head. Typically, the Wildean epigram consists of two elements: an outrageous statement followed by an explanation that is at once even more outrageous and at the same time true.
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.”
Victorian society emphasise the importance of the truth, though it is never ready to fully accept it, showing that the truth can actually be grim and not at all simple to reveal. Perhaps this reflects Wilde’s own struggles with society and the truth, for example with his homosexuality as at the time it was seen as a crime, so even though it was the truth, society would have struggled to accept it. This is an example of a Wildean epigram .
“My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.”
This could be interpreted in two ways. One that Algernon is saying that it is his duty as a man to seek out his pleasures and fulfill sexual needs. This is what is most important to him and it won’t change. However, it could also reinforce his lack of responsibility within Victorian society, and how he cares more about what he wants, not what society wants.
“Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches” ‘(takes one and eats it)’.
Paradox (he contradicts himself by eating them).
“They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.”
Algernon is blaming the lower class for his and upper-class lack of morality. At this time, people would have usually believed that it was the upper class who were setting an for the lower-class, but here he is turning that belief on its head. He is essentially saying that there is no use for the lower class despite all the work they do, enforcing his sense of entitlement.
“Divorces are made in Heaven”
Suggesting that divorces contribute to happiness and a corruption of the common ‘marriages are made in heaven’. This is perhaps more of a truism than the familiar phrase given by Victorian society.
“You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn’t Ernest. It’s on your cards.”
Jack confides his true name to Algernon, who refuses to believe him, and this description emphasises the difference between how Jack sees himself and how others see him. The repetition of the name ‘Ernest’, reminds the audience that Jack has entered into society under false pretences.
