Key quotes act 1

Question 1

Quote on Algy’s Piano playing.
Lane.
Algy.

Answer 1

Lane: I didn’t think it polite to listen.

Algy: I don’t play accurately… But i play with wonderful expression.

Question 2

Lane: I didn’t think it polite to listen.

Algy: I don’t play accurately… But i play with wonderful expression.

Answer 2

Analysis:
-Their conversational exchanges imply equality of wit, despite Lane being his servant.
-conforms to expected role of servant - who see and hears nothing.
-However, also joke that implies critique of Algy’s music ability.
-Inverts power balance between master and servant.

Question 3

Algy - about the lower class.

Answer 3

Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

Question 4

Algy: Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

Answer 4

Analysis:
-Direct reversal of usual assumptions about the transmission of morality.
-In victorian era the upper class viewed themselves as the upholders of morality so the statement is ironic.
-Wilde is revealing the superficial nature of upper class morality.

Question 5

Hedonism:
Jack on pleasure.
Jack on meals.

Answer 5

Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere?

I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them. (Ironic)

Question 6

Algy on mariage.

Answer 6

I though you had come up for pleasure?… I call that buisness.

Question 7

Algy: I thought you had come up for pleasure?… I call that buisness.

Answer 7

-Mocks upperclass arranged marriage.
-Financial arrangements.

Question 8

Jack oncity vs country

Answer 8

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

Question 9

Jack: When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

Answer 9

-Comedy of Manners.
-They are polite about stupid things but not about the things that matter.
-Typical of Victorian upper class to do things to keep up appearances.

Question 10

Algy on who girls marry.

Answer 10

Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right…

Question 11

Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right…

Answer 11

-Don’t marry the men their attracted to - probably marry rich.
-However, inverts relations between the sexes, suggesting girls have some choice over who they marry.
-Epigram - style over substance.

Question 12

Epigrams: Style over substance.
-Algy on truth.
-Lady Bracknell on ignorance.
-Algy on women and their mothers.
-Algy on how to behave to women.

Answer 12

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

Algernon: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.

Question 13

Lady Bracknell on invalids.

Answer 13

I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die… Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids… Health is the primary duty of life.

Question 14

I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die… Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids… Health is the primary duty of life.

Answer 14

-Artificial world of the play/upperclass.
-Highly formalised conversation.
-speech of an elite social group - style of greater importance than substance.
-Very proper - utterly heartless.
-Concern is for social niceties, no regard for conventional morality.
-Concerned only that his illness might disrupt her social schedule.
-overturns our assumptions about illness.
-Comically see illness as a moral question - susceptible to choice.
-Comically formidable woman.
-Inversion of power relations between the sexes.

Question 15

Effect of Epigrams:
e.g.
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

Answer 15

-Applies commonplace ideas about innocence to ignorance.
-Mocks pomposity and superficiality of high society.
-Aesthetic theory: demonstrates dominance of verbal style over substance.

Question 16

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Question 17

Lady Bracknell and Algy on widowed Lady Harbury.

Answer 17

Bracknell: She looks quite twenty years younger.
Algy: I’ve heard her hair has turned grey with grief.

Question 18

Bracknell: She looks quite twenty years younger.
Algy: I’ve heard her hair has turned gold with grief.

Answer 18

-Subverts Cliche “turned grey with grief”
-Suggests society is incapable of original thought so resorts to trivial/ empty forms of language.
-Reverses humane values, callousness/lack of sympathy.
-simultaneously condemns characters attitudes/values and wins approval of audience via their elegance and wit.

Question 19

Lady Bracknell on handbags.

Answer 19

Lady Bracknell: To be born, or at any rate bred, in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

Question 20

Lady Bracknell: To be born, or at any rate bred, in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.

Answer 20

-French revolution 1789-99, lead to democracy, saying a wealthy man who was born in a hand bag reminds her of social mobility.
-Lady Bracknell’s and the upper classes’ obsession with heritage and class.
-“French revolution” satirizes upper class selfishness, does not want poor to have equal rights.
-She is a formidable woman.