Society

Question 1

LWF - superficial society 6 QUOTES

Answer 1

• “(compliments) are the only things we can pay”
• “What a charming, wicked creature!”
• “the whole of london knows it”
• “What a bore it is to have to be civil to these old dowagers!”
• “quite delightful…dreadfully dull”
• “Augustus is completely infatuated about her. It is quite scandalous, for she is absolutely inadmissible into society”

Question 2

LWF - superficial society 3 CRITICS

Answer 2

• Malouin - ‘This piece is a plea for deliverance from a poisonous, corseted society’
• Small - ‘Wilde’s play shows us the destructiveness of gossip and superficial judgement’
• Small - ‘Mrs Erlynne’s motives might be corrupt, but the corruption of London society is deeper’

Question 3

LWF - superficial society CONTEXT

Answer 3

• Fallen women
• Mrs Beeton’s guide to household management

Question 4

Betrayal - superficial society 5 QUOTES

Answer 4

• J “You remember the form. I ask about your husband, you ask about my wife”
• E “He’s betrayed me for years” J “But we betrayed him for years”
• “We’re lovers”, R “Ah. Yes. I thought it might be something like that”
• Pauses S1
• “look at the way you look at me”

Question 5

Betrayal - superficial society CRITICS

Answer 5

• Wells - “characters fear disruption of the surface of things more than anything else”

Question 6

Betrayal - superficial society CONTEXT

Answer 6

• 40% of married women having affair
• Pinter described London in the 1960s as “a good place to have an affair” because of the massive changes in society taking place in the 60s