Themes

Question 1

Masculinity and Femininity

Answer 1

-Female characters appear more powerful than male characters.
-direct reversal of conventional power relations between men and women.
-Lady Bracknell has the masculine power - not Lord Bracknell.
-The men appear comparatively effeminate “dandies”.
-Part of the plays social satire.
-Context: Age of the empire, the ideal of the real man, had a responsible and well paid occupation in additton to a private income. Worked hard played hard - wide knowledge and experience “man of the world”. Strong sense of social responsibility and deep-seated morality.
-Jack and Algy do not have these traits.
-Lady Bracknells (and Gwendolyn’s) assumptions of what constitutes manliness reverse audiences assumptions of manliness.
-To her qualities that are not measurable at the dinner-party do not count as qualities at all.
-The young men in this play are not manly.
-Inverts power balance of sexes.

Question 2

Truth and Fiction:

Answer 2

-Wilde is an Aesthete - relationship between life and art - “Does art imitate life, or life imitate art?”
-characters participate - fine art of fabrication not just to deceive, but also to create a reality that is more like fiction.

• Cecily’s diary - “why, we have been engaged for the past three months!”
  -Jack - whose names is really Ernest (truth) - mistaken for Fiction (three volume novel) - fictionally assumes name Ernest.
  -Jack and Algernon Bunburying.
  -Line of fact and fiction blurred “Christian names, Ernest John.”

Question 3

Fact and Fiction - written evidence shown to be fictitious.

Answer 3

-Throughout play - written evidence shown to be fictitious.
-Gwendolen and Cecily - diaries - no relation to reality.
-Lady Bracknell has know some ‘Strange errors’ in Court Guides.
-Algy believes Jack name is Ernest because of his card.
-Raises important philosophical question of what constitutes evidence for knowledge - ‘epitemological question.’

Question 4

Binary Oppositions

Answer 4

Often created by a related pair of words that are opposite in meaning. He synthesises them, as in the Hegelian dialectic, so that a new concept emerges. This new concept will be a combination of both, allowing society to move forward, and this process can be repeated indefinitely.
- art and life
- the natural and the artificial
- the aesthetic and the moral
- the cynical and the optimistic
Algernon most related with cynicism and jack with optimism. former cynical Algernon becomes optimist and jack cynic. The denouement of the drama synthesises the positions.

Question 5

Contemporary education

Answer 5

As a liberal humanist with a focus on the arts, wilde wholly disapproved of the English education system: “we teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.” (the critic as artist).
Miss Prism is a satirical representation of the typical English governess and she obviously bores her pupil. Yet it is made apparent that the younger generation is well informed and well educated, the women even more so than the men.
Wilde through chasuble and Lady Bracknell makes clear two points: Charity will not help the poor, but education will; and it is not the wealthy who will put educational provision for the poor into place.