IGCSE English O-level / A-level Drama

1. Witticisms and Parallel
Structure
IN OSCAR WILDE’S IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
Name
Grade

2. 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.

3. Witticisms

4. “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

5. “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 appearances
Victorian Society sets absolute rules,
so retaliation is the same but with
completely opposite rules.

6. “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

7. “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’

8. Parallel Structure

9. Gwendolen and Cecily

10. 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 boy
may 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

11. 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

12. Jack and Algernon

13. 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 more
obvious now
Exact same
structure
Fake declarations of comradery
enhance the unoriginality of comeback

14. 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