TIOBE Flashcards
1
Q
Key elements
A
- Comedy of Manners
- Jack and Algernon are a comic pairing
- Lady Bracknell is the comic obstacle
- Jack and Gwendolen’s relationship mirrors Algernon and Cecily’s
- Town vs Country theme
- Public and Private spheres
2
Q
Act 1
A
- Setting: Town, upper class
- ‘When on is in town, one amuses oneself’ - Jack to Algernon
- ‘If I ever get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact’ - Algernon
- ‘(Follows Algernon around the room)’ - SD
- ‘My name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country’ - Jack
- ‘In married life three is company and two in none’ - Algernon
- ‘I intend to develop in many directions’ - Gwendolen to Jack
- ‘I think it is high time that Mr Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘It produces vibrations’ - Gwendolen to Jack
- ‘Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘The line is immaterial’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘marry into a cloakroom and make an aliiance with a parcel?’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘They will be calling each other sister’ Jack
3
Q
Act 2
A
- Setting: Countryside
- ‘Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious’ - Cecily
- ‘Were I fortunate to be Miss Prism’s pupil, I would hang upon her lips’ - Dr Chasuable
- ‘(Enter Algernon)’ - SD
- ‘(Shaking his head) Dead!’ - Jack abt his ‘brother’
- ‘his return seems to me peculiarly distressing’ - Miss Prism
- ‘I think his coming down here disgraceful’ - Jack
- ‘Well, I don’t like your clothes’ - Algernon
- ‘I am in love with Cecily’ - Algernon
- ‘We have been engaged for the last three months’ - Cecily
- ‘it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest’ - Cecily
- ‘The home seems to be the proper sphere for the man’ - Gwendolen
- ‘I have liked you ever since I met you!’ - Gwendolen
- ‘Ernest proposed to me exactly ten minutes ago’ - Cecily
- ‘I never travel without my diary’ - Gwendolen
- ‘You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctively for bread and butter, you have given me cake’ - Gwendolen
- ‘A gross deception has been practised on us both’ - Gwedolen
4
Q
Act 3
A
- ‘We will not be the first to speak’ - Gwendolen
- ‘(Gwendolen and Cecily speaking together)’ - SD
- ‘(Jack and Algernon speaking together)’ - SD
- ‘To please me you are ready to face this fearful ordeal?’ - Cecily
- ‘Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage?’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘A hundred and thirty thousand pounds… Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady’ - Lady Bracknell
- ‘Prism! Where is that baby? - Lady Bracknell
- ‘Then I have a brother after all’ - Jack
- ‘I’ve now realisedd for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest’ - Jack
5
Q
Sentence starters
A
- Wilde’s characteristaion draws on an established tradition in which characters swap roles and mirror each other
- Need to reference how Wilde makes the audience feel: humour, clever, satisfied
