Witticisms and Parallel Structure

IN OSCAR WILDE’S IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Name

Grade

IMPORTANCE OF THE TOPIC

As this initial example points out, the function of the dialogue in Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is radically different than in a classical drama. Statements usually made do not really serve to promote the plot. They are absurd and almost irrelevant to the context, but at the same time philosophical and extremely hilarious and entertaining. Dialogue has a value in itself and is more important than plot.

Witticisms

“More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”

Not allowed in the Victorian era

Considered ‘vulgar’

“It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.”

Reversal of clichés, policy of the Victorian era. Do the opposite of what you’re told.

“Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.” Don’t know how to break

rules and appreciate the beauty of life

Sounds like Lady Bracknell. Doesn’t care if they live or die. Algernon affected by the Victorian era

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man ever does. That’s his.”

How the system goes on continuously. Finality in what he says

“It is perfectly phrased! and quite true as any observation in civilized life should be.”

Openly opposing the Victorian ways

“The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty and to someone else, if she is plain.”

All about appearancesVictorian Society sets absolute rules, so retaliation is the same but with completely opposite rules.

“I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.”

Boring and tedious to always be serious and dutiful

“My duty as a gentleman never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.”

Duty is not pleasure. A dutiful gentleman can’t have pleasure. Reference: Jack

“If you are not [wicked], then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

“…I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life…”

Is it really?Shows her innocence, protected life. At the same time, wittiness

Unspoken basis of Society at the time

In times such as these, where ‘wickedness’ is good

Among all the dullness and duties one must perform, skipping some is seen ‘attractive’ and ‘the beauty of life’

Parallel Structure

Gwendolen and Cecily

GWENDOLEN [meditatively]: If the poor fellow has been entrapped into any foolish promise I shall consider it my duty to rescue him at once, and with a firm hand.

CECILY [thoughtfully and sadly]: Whatever unfortunate entanglement my dear boymay have got into, I will never reproach him with it after we are married.

Similar use of endearments, see their ‘boys’ as victims of the other women’s charms

Almost synonyms

Present tense, possessiveness

Implied accusation: the other girl is lying

GWENDOLEN: Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement? You are presumptuous. On an occasion of this kind, it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure.

CECILY: Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade, I call it a spade.

Exact same beginning

Address each other right in the middle of the sentence

Show of anger makes up the third sentence

Also repeated, but she is more formal about it

Different backgrounds are being exposed. Cecily thinks manners are a ‘shallow mask’, while Gwendolen calls them a ‘moral duty’. Also the use of the word ‘pleasure’ shows how rare it is in the ‘proper’ Victorian Society

Jack and Algernon

Jack: Well, the only small satisfaction I have in the whole of this wretched business is that your friend Bunbury is quite exploded. You won’t be able to run down to the country quite so often as you used to, dear Algy. And a very good thing, too.

Algernon: Your brother is a little off color, isn’t he, dear Jack? You won’t be able to disappear to London quite so frequently as your wicked custom was. And not a bad thing, either.

Doing the same thing, even moreobvious now

Exact same structure

Fake declarations of comradery enhance the unoriginality of comeback

Jack: As for your conduct towards Miss Cardew, I must say that your taking in a sweet, simple, innocent girl like that is quite inexcusable. To say nothing of the fact that she is my ward.

Algernon: I can see no possible defense at all for your deceiving a brilliant, clever, thoroughly experienced, young lady like Miss Fairfax. To say nothing of the fact that she is my cousin.

Thoroughly different descriptions but same structure and concept

Synonyms