Sexuality

Question 1

How could Jack’s cigarette (+ a quote) case be seen as a homosexual allusion?

Answer 1

• ‘For heaven’s sake give me back my cigarette case.’
• Wilde himself was thought to give young men he had relations with cigarette cases as gifts.

Question 2

How could Cecily’s name be seen as an Allusion?

Answer 2

• Claimed to be slang for a young male prostitute

Question 3

How could the name Earnest be seen as an Allusion?

Answer 3

• Wilde and his lover Lord Douglas had sex with a busboy named Earnest, who testified at the trial.
• Ernest was also a name with German roots and there was a homosexual emancipation movement that emerged in Germany when Wilde was writing the play

Question 4

How can Bunburying be seen as an allusion?

Answer 4

“Bunburying” phonetically similar to buggery which is British slang for sodomy