Oscar Wilde Pre-reading activities
Oscar Wilde Pre-reading activities Comedy Brainstorm comedic devices – what do audiences find funny? How do actors and play writers make people laugh? Think, Pair, Share. Parody, satire, irony. Research Assignment Complete an A4/3 sheet of paper with facts and information about the following: a) Oscar Wilde – biography b) Victorian England – how is this time/place characterised? Do NOT use wikipedia. Due Monday Anticipation Guide Complete the survey in 3 – 4 minutes (on your own). T = true, N = never true, or S = sometimes true ___ Girls never marry the men they flirt with ___ It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. ___ Once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. ___ Health is the primary duty of life. ___ An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise. ___ I don’t like novels that end happily. ___ It is not a really serious engagement if it hasn’t been broken off at least once. ___ I am very fond of being looked at. ___ In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. ___ No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. Discuss and Predict In pairs or groups of 3, compare your ideas and responses to the statements. What did you think? Is each statement TRUE? NEVER TRUE? Or SOMETIMES TRUE?? If so, in what situation? Why do some of the statements strike you as being absurd? Or even funny? Discuss. Keep the Anticipation Guide in your books, we will return to it throughout the topic. Each statement comes from the play. Predict a few things about the play such as it’s tone and themes, (eg. marriage). Title ”The Importance of Being Earnest” Use your own knowledge and the dictionary/ thesaurus to define the meaning of ‘earnest’. Complete an iceberg to analyse the denotative and connotative meanings, dig deep for analysis and clues into the play. “Earnest” Actual meanings? Inferred meanings? When spelt ‘Ernest’, the word is a boy’s name. What does the word mean when spelt ‘earnest’? With this in mind, what does the title suggest about the play? Explain your ideas. 2. The tagline of the play is ‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’. Explain the significance and implications of this, i.e. what does Wilde mean by ‘trivial’ and ‘serious’. How would the meaning and implications change if this sentence was reversed (i.e. ‘A Serious Comedy for Trivial People’)? 3. Two of the central themes of the play are APPEARANCE & REALITY and SOCIAL STATUS & EXPECTATIONS. For each theme, do a brainstorm to show how these themes could be presented. 4. The play is a satirical comedy: SATIRE - a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack. Satirical comedies are very common on television. ‘The Simpsons’ satirizes the ‘American Dream’; programmes such as ‘Family Guy’, ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘I’m Alan Partridge’ also contain satirical comedy. Watch this clip from ‘The Office’ and see if you can identify WHY it is an example of satire. 1. Homework: Find an example each of PARODY and SATIRE – bring in the youtube link or email it to me. Due tomorrow: Wednesday 3/8/11 Analyse opening scene Sum up the setting and opening interaction between Lane and Algernon. Identify and comment on the comedic techniques used (motifs, inversions, non-sequitur, satire) and how they present ideas about marriage and class structure in Victorian England. EXTENSION: Word play / puns / irony / farce / wit – do any of these apply to the opening of Act 1 ? HOMEWORK Research the Aesthetics & Decadence movement in Victorian England. Present your findings in an A3 poster with a balance of visual and written information. DUE THURSDAY 11th AUGUST Research and Homework Tasks Week Date Due Task 2 Thursday 11/08 A4 Research -Aesthetic and Decadence Movements 3 Tuesday 16/08 Map class structure in London, 1890’s. What it took to be aristocratic, etc. Make poster chart show different social status levels and what sorts of occupations each might have, kind of lifestyle, fashion, other things that distinguish classes. 3 Friday 19/08 Create own satiric epigrams, take cliched phrases and twisting them as Algernon does with “in married life 3 is company and 2 is none” or by coming up with your own. Use these to write a brief story about some element of our modern day society 4 Thursday 25/08 Draw and/or find pictures to create a set and wardrobe for the play with each scene and each character matched to pictures. 5 Tuesday 30/08 Research ONE other book/play Oscar Wilde wrote. What makes his writing so good? Are there any similarities between this and TIOBE? Include pictures, quotes from him and from other sources. Oscar Wilde Reading activities Structure / Setting / Themes / Motifs & Symbols Organisation (Structure) Put this information into a graph. The play is divided into 3 Acts. Acts I and II are about 20 pages long with 2 parts each and Act III is only about 10 pages long. The 1st act immediately addresses the conflict of Jack’s separate identities, and this basic issue compounds into several more conflicts all introduced in Act I. The act also serves to give us most of the background information for the main characters, even some of the ones that we don’t meet until Act II such as Cecily. Act I also centres around Jack’s dilemmas though Algernon is the main character on the stage and has the wittiest lines. Act II then proceeds to branch out from Jack to conflicts with other characters. The action continues to rise as the characters become entangled, but by the end of Act II things have begun to sort themselves out. The purpose of Act III, then, is for the plot to finally climax at what has turned out to be its central focus: the barriers preventing the marriage between Jack and Gwendolen. Setting The story takes place, according to Wilde, in London in the present. However, the setting changes from the city to the countryside of London, and Wilde’s present was the 1890’s (the play was published in 1895). Motifs and Symbols Motif = recurring structure or literary device. Symbol = recurring objects, characters, figures, colours. Motifs include (1)puns, (2) inversion, (3) death and (4)‘the dandy’. What examples can you recall from the play that reveal these motifs? Discuss how they are significant. Symbols include the (1) double life, (2) food, (3) fiction and writing. What examples can you recall from the play that reveal these symbols? Discuss how they are significant. MOTIFS – Puns In The Importance of Being Earnest, the pun, widely considered to be the lowest form of verbal wit, is rarely just a play on words. The pun in the title is a case in point. The earnest/Ernest joke strikes at the very heart of Victorian notions of respectability and duty. Gwendolen wants to marry a man called Ernest, and she doesn't care whether the man actually possesses the qualities that comprise earnestness. She is, after all, quick to forgive Jack's deception. In embodying a man who is initially neither “earnest” nor “Ernest,” and who, through forces beyond his control, subsequently becomes both “earnest” and “Ernest,” Jack is a walking, breathing paradox and a complex symbol of Victorian hypocrisy. In Act III, when Lady Bracknell quips that until recently she had no idea there were any persons “whose origin was a Terminus,” she too is making an extremely complicated pun. The joke is that a railway station is as far back as Jack can trace his identity and therefore a railway station actually is his “origin,” hence the pun. In Wilde's day, as in the England of today, the first stop on a railway line is known as the “origin” and the last stop as the “terminus.” There's also a whole series of implicit subsidiary puns on words like line and connection that can refer to either ancestry or travel. Wilde is poking fun at Lady Bracknell's snobbery. He depicts her as incapable of distinguishing between a railway line and a family line, social connections and railway connections, a person's ancestral origins and the place where he chanced to be found. In general, puns add layers of meaning to the characters' lines and call into question the true or intended meaning of what is being said. Motifs - Inversion One of the most common motifs in The Importance of Being Earnest is the notion of inversion, and inversion takes many forms. The play contains inversions of thought, situation, and character, as well as inversions of common notions of morality or philosophical thought. When Algernon remarks, “Divorces are made in Heaven,” he inverts the cliché about marriages being “made in heaven.” Similarly, at the end of the play, when Jack calls it “a terrible thing” for a man to discover that he's been telling the truth all his life, he inverts conventional morality. Most of the women in the play represent an inversion of accepted Victorian practices with regard to gender roles. Lady Bracknell usurps the role of the father in interviewing Jack, since typically this was a father's task, and Gwendolen and Cecily take charge of their own romantic lives, while the men stand by watching in a relatively passive role. The trick that Wilde plays on Miss Prism at the end of the play is also a kind of inversion: The trick projects onto the play's most fervently moralistic character the image of the “fallen woman” of melodrama. MOTIFS: Death Jokes about death appear frequently in The Importance of Being Earnest. Lady Bracknell comes onstage talking about death, and in one of the play's many inversions, she says her friend Lady Harbury looks twenty years younger since the death of her husband. With respect to Bunbury, she suggests that death is an inconvenience for others—she says Bunbury is “shilly-shallying” over whether “to live or to die.” On being told in Act III that Bunbury has died suddenly in accordance with his physicians' predictions, Lady Bracknell commends Bunbury for acting “under proper medical advice.” Miss Prism speaks as though death were something from which one could learn a moral lesson and piously says she hopes Ernest will profit from having died. Jack and Algernon have several conversations about how to “kill” Jack's imaginary brother. Besides giving the play a layer of dark humour, the death jokes also connect to the idea of life being a work of art. Most of the characters discuss death as something over which a person actually has control, as though death is a final decision one can make about how to shape and colour one's life. Motif - The Dandy To the form of Victorian melodrama, Wilde contributed the figure of the dandy, a character who gave the form a moral texture it had never before possessed. In Wilde's works, the dandy is a witty, overdressed, self-styled philosopher who speaks in epigrams and paradoxes and ridicules the cant and hypocrisy of society's moral arbiters. To a very large extent, this figure was a self-portrait, a stand-in for Wilde himself. The dandy isn't always a comic figure in Wilde's work. In A Woman of No Importance and The Picture of Dorian Gray, he takes the form of the villains Lord Illingworth and Lord Henry Wootton, respectively. But in works such as Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde seems to be evolving a more positive and clearly defined moral position on the figure of the dandy. The dandy pretends to be all about surface, which makes him seem trivial, shallow, and ineffectual. Lord Darlington and Lord Goring (in Lady Windermere's Fan and An Ideal Husband) both present themselves this way. In fact, the dandy in both plays turns out to be something very close to the real hero. He proves to be deeply moral and essential to the happy resolution of the plot. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon has many characteristics of the dandy, but he remains morally neutral throughout the play. Many other characters also express dandiacal sentiments and views. Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell are being dandiacal when they assert the importance of surfaces, style, or “profile,” and even Jack echoes the philosophy of the dandy when he comes onstage asserting that “pleasure” is the only thing that should “bring one anywhere.” For the most part, these utterances seem to be part of Wilde's general lampooning of the superficiality of the upper classes. The point is that it's the wrong sort of superficiality because it doesn't recognize and applaud its own triviality. In fact, Cecily, with her impatience with self-improvement and conventional morality and her curiosity about “wickedness,” is arguably the character who, after Algernon, most closely resembles the dandy. Her dandiacal qualities make her a perfect match for him. SYMBOLS - The Double Life The double life is the central metaphor in the play, epitomized in the notion of “Bunbury” or “Bunburying.” As defined by Algernon, Bunburying is the practice of creating an elaborate deception that allows one to misbehave while seeming to uphold the very highest standards of duty and responsibility. Jack's imaginary, wayward brother Ernest is a device not only for escaping social and moral obligations but also one that allows Jack to appear far more moral and responsible than he actually is. Similarly, Algernon's imaginary invalid friend Bunbury allows Algernon to escape to the country, where he presumably imposes on people who don't know him in much the same way he imposes on Cecily in the play, all the while seeming to demonstrate Christian charity. The practice of visiting the poor and the sick was a staple activity among the Victorian upper and uppermiddle classes and considered a public duty. The difference between what Jack does and what Algernon does, however, is that Jack not only pretends to be something he is not, that is, completely virtuous, but also routinely pretends to be someone he is not, which is very different. This sort of deception suggests a far more serious and profound degree of hypocrisy. Through these various enactments of double lives, Wilde suggests the general hypocrisy of the Victorian mindset. Symbol - Food Food and scenes of eating appear frequently in The Importance of Being Earnest, and they are almost always sources of conflict. Act I contains the extended cucumber sandwich joke, in which Algernon, without realizing it, steadily devours all the sandwiches. In Act II, the climax of Gwendolen and Cecily's spat over who is really engaged to Ernest Worthing comes when Gwendolen tells Cecily, who has just offered her sugar and cake, that sugar is “not fashionable any more” and “Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.” Cecily responds by filling Gwendolen's tea with sugar and her plate with cake. The two women have actually been insulting each other quite steadily for some time, but Cecily's impudent actions cause Gwendolen to become even angrier, and she warns Cecily that she “may go too far.” On one level, the jokes about food provide a sort of low comedy, the Wildean equivalent of the slammed door or the pratfall. On another level, food seems to be a stand-in for sex, as when Jack tucks into the bread and butter with too much gusto and Algernon accuses him of behaving as though he were already married to Gwendolen. Food and gluttony suggest and substitute for other appetites and indulgences. SYMBOLS: Fiction and Writing Writing and the idea of fiction figure in the play in a variety of important ways. Algernon, when the play opens, has begun to suspect that Jack's life is at least partly a fiction, which, thanks to the invented brother Ernest, it is. Bunbury is also a fiction. When Algernon says in Act I, “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read,” he may be making a veiled reference to fiction, or at least reading material perceived to be immoral. In Act II, the idea of fiction develops further when Cecily speaks dismissively of “three-volume novels” and Miss Prism tells her she once wrote one herself. This is an allusion to a mysterious past life that a contemporary audience would have recognized as a stock element of stage melodrama. Cecily's diary is a sort of fiction as well: In it, she has recorded an invented romance whose details and developments she has entirely imagined. When Cecily and Gwendolen seek to establish their respective claims on Ernest Worthing, each appeals to the diary in which she recorded the date of her engagement, as though the mere fact of having written something down makes it fact. Ultimately, fiction becomes related to the notion of life as an art form. Several of the characters attempt to create a fictional life for themselves which then, in some capacity, becomes real. Wilde seems to regard as the most fundamentally moral those who not only freely admit to creating fictions for themselves but who actually take pride in doing so Theme What points about life does Wilde seem to be making? Consider: (A) the kinds of decisions characters made, their reasons for making them, and the consequences of doing so. (B) the conflicts and how they are resolved. (C) what the main characters learn in the course of the play. (D) the significance of the play’s outcome. Act 1 • Name a theme, how does it fit into this Act? • Another theme, how does it fit? Act 2 Act 3 • Name a theme, how does it fit into this Act? • Another theme, how does it fit? • Name a theme how does it fit into this Act? • Another theme, how does it fit? Group work on themes- all 5! To better understand the themes and to provide evidence and 1. 2. 3. 4. conclusions about Wilde’s ideas – discuss each theme in a group. Complete the following tasks. Make a topic statement about the theme –show evidence that it is your opinion and designed to build an argument. Give 3 examples from specific places in the play which relate to the theme and your argument about the theme. Analyse each example – what does it mean to the audience, what symbolic of deeper meanings does in also infer or suggest. How does it link to similar examples of other crafting techniques in the play which have the same effect. Finish with a conclusion – sum up how well you think Wilde has conveyed his theme through his examples / crafting of the play. YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES Themes Satire on earnestness and triviality in the Victorian period in England (late 19th Century) woven throughout several themes: 1. Decadence: Wilde’s belief in art for art’s sake applied to life and society, also embraced by several of the characters in the book through which Wilde simultaneously propels the idea and reveals the ridiculousness of it: the term also has to do with self indulgence, illustrated throughout the play (Algernon eating everything, the idea of “Bunburying”, etc.) Themes 2. Marriage: deliberately following British literary tradition of Austen and others in centering work on marriage, but satirising Victorian views surrounding it, showing how little it was based on love and how much on maintaining or improving social status; the subject of many of the most witty epigrams in the play (mainly lines by Algernon, Lady Bracknell, and Cecily); using superficiality of a name being a barrier to marriage to show how equally ridiculous it is for birthright to be a barrier to marriage since an individual has little control of either their name or their birthright. Themes 3. Society: satirises Victorian society in general, and twists facets of it in some cases, such as where Algernon comments about lower classes setting the example when traditional Victorian views would have said the opposite; “earnestness” in a way refers to the earnestness of characters such as Lady Bracknell who take society too seriously; Lady Bracknell can be examined as the epitome of Victorian female societal views, and Algernon as quite the opposite. Themes 4. Morality: this subject, like other “important: issues such as marriage and death, is treated with absolute triviality in the play as part of Wilde’s satire; many of Algernon’s epigrams strike us as funny because of the irony between the moral code we are accustomed to and the ridiculous morals he espouses. Themes 5. Honesty; treated sometimes trivially and other times quite seriously, becomes an ironic theme at the end when Jack turns out to have been honest all along though he had thought himself never to have been entirely truthful; Jack, Algernon, Cecily and Gwendolen turn out to have been earnest after all, not about society as is Lady Bracknell, but about following their own ambitions. Point of View / Narrative Voice As it is a play, Wilde reveals the story to an omniscient audience who the characters are not aware of. The audience is given all the clues to understand the mix-up long before the characters figure it out, allowing the audience to enjoy the dramatic irony of seeing the ridiculousness of the characters while the characters take themselves so seriously. TONE: The time period affects the tone in that it was a period of Decadence in France and England. The concerns of the characters are highly trivial and self-indulgent, and the whole thing is satiric in its portrayal of their superficial entanglements. Overall, the tone is humourous, ironic and satiric. IRONY: The play is full of irony, but where it comes to its climax is in the interrelations revealed at the end between the characters and in Jack’s real name being Ernest, representing the idea that he has been earnest all along in seeking the ambition of his heart rather than bowing before society. Comedic Conventions Exaggeration Incongruity (something that seems out of time, place or character) Anticipation Deus ex machina Ambiguity Non Sequitur Epigrams Tasks for Act 1 Up to the arrival of Lady Bracknell: How are the characters of Algernon and Jack/Ernest created for the audience? • What is the effect of the interchange between Algernon and Lane? How is Wilde ridiculing the conventions of class structure in this interchange? • Give examples of different types of humour and how they work (quote and comment) 2) Draw up a list of statements made about marriage by different characters and comment on the impressions given. 3) ‘A trivial comedy for serious people’ –list words/phrases where trivial events are treated with overblown seriousness. Identify comic methods. 4) How are women in Act 1 shown to have the upper hand? (Explore more than simply what happens on stage.) 5) What ideas do you gain about ‘society’ from your reading of the first Act? Find quotations relating to status, behaviour and morality, and culture. 1) • Use the play/stage directions in Act 1 to sketch the layout /design of the set as you imagine it to look. Imagine you are directing a production of this play. How would you position Algernon / Lane and their movements in the opening scene? Extension work Things you can do to read more widely and gain more insight into the play and the writer. a) Read Oscar Wilde’s other works – “A Woman of No Importance”, and “An Ideal Husband”. Also, his novel, “A Picture of Dorian Gray” b) Read criticisms and biography work – some titles are “Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage”, “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde.” “Oscar Wilde: A Biography” and many more…search through the public library and online. c) Cliffnotes online and various other sources (Spark Notes). Enotes. Do now: KEY VOCABULARY Find the meaning of each of the following terms which relate to the purpose of The Importance of Being Earnest. Record the meaning and think of examples from modern texts, novels, stories, films, tv or song. Farce Satire Irony Trivial Next SHARED READING OF TEXT In your allocated groups of 4/5, read from page 9 to the end of Act 1. As you read, pause and record (i.e. Task 3 on your sheet) “words/phrases where trivial events are treated with overblown seriousness. Identify comic methods.” EXIT PASS 3,2,1 RiQ – what have you learned about how Wilde treats trivial versus serious topics in Act 1. Marriage Marriage: deliberately following British literary tradition of Austen and others in centring work on marriage, but satirising Victorian views surrounding it, showing how little it was based on love and how much on maintaining or improving social status; the subject of many of the most witty epigrams in the play (mainly lines by Algernon, Lady Bracknell, and Cecily); using superficiality of a name being a barrier to marriage to show how equally ridiculous it is for birthright to be a barrier to marriage since an individual has little control of either their name or their birthright. How does Wilde present his views on marriage? (consider style, tone, language, dialogue, stage / drama / comedic conventions, characterisation, setting, point of view – eg audience response ) Marriage Here are a number of things which Victorian society placed importance on, especially in determining prospects for marriage. a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) Birth order Legitimacy Parentage Family heritage Family wealth Social class Christening Gender Act 1: Task 5 What ideas do you gain about ‘society’ from your reading? Find quotes relating to…. Status…. Behaviour…. Morality…. “Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?” “They seems, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility”. “I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock” “Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?” Culture…. NEXT: How has Act 1 established the rising action, story development, conflicts and complications to follow in subsequent Acts (2 and 3)? Foreshadowing Algy calls Jack Ernest, already foreshadowing of complications ahead (A1) 2. Gwendolen’s refusal to love anyone but a man named Ernest foreshadows conflict in her relationship with Jack. 3. Revelation of Jack’s parentage being unknown foreshadows a possibility for surprises about relations later on. 4. Algy’s comments about wanting to meet Cecily foreshadows his visit. 5. Jack and Algy’s conversation about women calling each other sister foreshadows what will really happen when Cecily and Gwendolen meet. 6. Algy copies down Jack’s country address and tells Lane he’ll be Bunburying, again foreshadowing his visit to Cecily. 7. Jack’s comment that Algy’s Bunburying will get him into a scrape foreshadows the complications that arise in Act II. 8. Prism mentions a lost manuscript, foreshadowing her involvement in whatever will turn up at the end. 9. Cecily’s refusal to love anyone but a man named Earnest foreshadows conflict in her relationship with Algernon. 10. Lady Bracknell knows Prism and questions about lost baby, foreshadowing again Prism’s involvement in the mystery. 1. Exit Pass Make 3 predictions about what is to happen in the next Act. Give reasons and point to evidence in Act 1 to support your comments. 1. 2. 3. Drama Terminology Game Your group are aiming to apply the ‘TERMS’ to a section of the play (Act II). Cut and paste the terms onto the A3 poster, put an example / quotation from Act II next to it. Discuss the terms and their examples as you go. Winning group will have the most number of terms with examples on their poster. To finish: look up the definitions of the remaining Drama Terms and record these on your poster. Tasks for Act 2 – work in pairs 1) Explore how the country characters are different to the town characters through: - Language - Occupations / activities - Attitudes to each other - Social class 2) How is the theme of deceit developed in this Act? 3) Collect examples of matched language /stylistic patterns for the 6 paired characters. How are similar patterns revealed in the action of the play? 4) How do running jokes contribute to the comedy of this Act (German; food; education; writing)? 5) What attitudes towards religion appear in this Act? Consider christening; church services; relevance of religion to daily life. 6) Compare Lane, Merriman and Miss Prism as employees and as comic characters. What do they bring to the play, which would otherwise be missing? Well-made play: A very structured and rigid plot and a climax that takes place very close to the end of the story, with most of the story taking place before the action of the play; much of the information regarding such previous action would be revealed through thinly veiled exposition. Following that would be a series of causally-related plot complications. A recurrent device is the use of letters or papers falling into unintended hands, in order to bring about plot twists and climaxes. The majority of well-made plays are comedies, often farce. Summary and response to A2 Act 2 opens in the “Garden at the Manor House” where Cecily is watering flowers and Miss Prism is calling her for a lesson in German grammar. This sets the scene for the country characters “Surely such a utilitarian occupation …is rather Moulton’s duty than yours?” The Act finishes with Jack insisting Algernon leave, “Why don’t you go?”, and Algernon replying that he hasn’t finished his tea yet, “there is still one muffin left”. Summarise this Act, paying particular attention to your OWN personal response, (you must evaluate / judge / express opinion) of the Act Wilde has created. This homework task is due on Tuesday next week. Research ONE other book/play Oscar Wilde wrote. What makes his writing so good? Are there any similarities between this and TIOBE? Include pictures, quotes from him and from other sources. Tasks for Act III – work in pairs 1) In the battle of the sexes, which side, if any, do you 2) 3) 4) 5) consider ‘wins’? Give evidence. How is humour enhanced through comic timing and patterns in this Act? Continue notes on the use of inflated language when used for trivialities (refer to subtitle of play – A Trivial Comedy for Serious People). What links are there between social attitudes, money and marriage? How does the third act fulfil the needs of the ‘wellmade play”? PLAN response to this essay question. The Importance of Being Earnest has been described as a ‘timeless play’. How do you account for its continuing success? Appreciate intentions Use language of and purpose of ______________________________________________________ drama – playwright AS Literature essays techniques and Write in 3rd person conventions *4- 8 paragraphs (as an authority) but *Topic sentences express own evaluations *Detailed and well-developed explanations of point of view (yours as well as recognising Examine the effect of those of other ‘experts’ and ‘critics’) playwrights craft *Direct and precise referencing / quotation, on the audience examination / exploration and critical analysis Recognise difference of ideas. between audience of the day (1899) and *Relevance to essay topic (tie-backs and linking) today Topic Sentences Wilde’s exaggeration of trivial objects and issues add to the comedic effect of this timeless play. The use of this successful play’s witty dialogue and epigrams appeals to audiences over time. The depth of Wilde’s comedic conventions allow audiences to reinterpret the timeless play differently as knowledge and life experiences accumulate. Essay Question In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ there is a tension between the artificial behaviour dictated by society and the natural way in which people wish to behave. How far do you find this a valid comment on the play? 2. For what dramatic purposes does Wilde use a) food and b) concern for property in The Importance of Being Earnest? 3. The Importance of Being Earnest has been described as a ‘timeless play’. How do you account for its continuing success? 4. For Wilde’s original audiences, the overturning of gender roles within The Importance of Being Earnest was funny because it seemed so unlikely. What sources of humour might a modern audience find? 5. Discuss the implications of class differences in the success of The Importance of Being Earnest as a comedy. 1. Essay Questions continued… 6) How are Victorian attitudes to marriage and respectability explored in The Importance of Being Earnest? 7) How do the ‘country characters’ cast light on the pretensions of society as exposed in The Importance of Being Earnest? 8) What does the hidden character of Lord Bracknell add to our understanding and enjoyment of the play? 9) How does Wilde use satire to ‘explode’ the social world he writes about in The Importance of Being Earnest? 10) How far would you agree with the view that The Importance of Being Earnest is ‘a play without a moral, existing for its own sake, for its own perfection, communicating no message’? Essay questions cont… 11) How far do you agree with Wilde’s description of The Importance of Being Earnest: ‘The first act is ingenious, the second beautiful and the third abominably clever’? 12) ‘Humour, like drama, arises from conflict.’ How far is this true in The Importance of Being Earnest? 13) How far do you agree that the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest wear masks that cover real feelings, so preventing the audience’s engagement with them on an emotional level? 14) How important are ideas of parentage and family in The Importance of Being Earnest? 1. Don't change horses …until they stop running. 2. Strike while the … wasp is close. 3. It's always darkest before ….Daylight Saving Time.. 4. Never underestimate the power of ….termites. 5. You can lead a horse to water but …How? 6. Don't bite the hand that …looks dirty. 7. No news is …impossible 8. A miss is as good as …a Mr. 9. You can't teach an old dog new …maths 10. If you lie down with dogs… you'll stink in the morning... 12. The pen is mightier than the …..pigs. 13. An idle mind is …. …the best way to relax 14. Where there's smoke there's ….pollution. 15. Happy the bride who ...gets all the presents. 16. A penny saved is …..not much. 17. Two's company, three's …the Musketeers. 18. Don't put off till tomorrow what …you put on to go to bed. 19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with…you, cry and you have to blow your nose. 20. There are none so blind as … …Stevie Wonder .. 21. Children should be seen and not … …spanked or grounded. 22. If at first you don't succeed … ..get new batteries. 23. You get out of something only what you …See in the picture on the box 24. When the blind lead the blind …get out of the way. 25. A bird in the hand …is going to poop on you. 26. Better late than …Pregnant Epigrams from Wilde – truth, lie, funny, serious? Or sarcastic? In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. • Misfortunes one can endure. But to suffer for one’s own faults—ah!—there is the sting of life. • Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it ever six months. • Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. • The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future. • Bigamy is having one wife too many; monogamy is the same. • Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief. • Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. A true friend stabs you in the front. We are all of us living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. To love yourself is the beginning of a lifelong affair! The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. •But what is the difference between literature and journalism? ...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all. One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead. • Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. • Why was I born with such contemporaries? • When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. • Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. • Work is the curse of the drinking classes. • It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. • Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Only the shallow know themselves. A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about. One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much. It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one’s enemies. It is the successes of one’s friends that are hard to bear. Nothing succeeds like excess. Women have a much better time than men in this world. There are far more things forbidden to them. Themes – class list… Marriage Hypocrisy Deception Decadence Gender Womanhood Education Sincerity/Earnestness Morality Identity / Illegitamacy Wealth Triviality (of eg death) Social Status Humour Class divide Country versus City Religion HOMEWORK: Categorise this list into 5 or 6. Many of them are related. For each category write a brief description of the theme as you understand it. Due next lesson. Essay question - collaborate In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ there is a tension between the artificial behaviour dictated by society and the natural way in which people wish to behave. How far do you find this a valid comment on the play? A) Analyse the question B) Brainstorm to generate lots of ideas / examples / opinions C) Choose your key points Prepare an outline of ideas and examples for a timed essay on Thursday 19th March (Period 5) In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ there is a tension between the artificial behaviour dictated by society and the natural way in which people wish to behave. How far do you find this a valid comment on the play? (a) Wilde ridicules social pretensions in Victorian society – the (b) (c) (d) (e) double identity is a motif used to show the conflict between how people WANT to behave and how the MUST behave according to conventions of the time. The main plot which provides the central conflict - Jack and Gwendolen’s pursuit of marriage and the obstacles of his name, her mother and his birth serve to emphasise the absurdity of Victorian values. Commentary on the upper and lower classes and their places in society. Roles of the female characters – the power, control and manipulation they perform under the thinly veiled disguise of etiquette and good –manners Rivalry between country and city life Character Analysis – Cloze Tests Under each of these headings write your impressions / describe these types of characters from what you understand about their representation. Female Characters Male Characters Country Characters City Characters Aristocracy Servants The names of the characters John (Jack) Worthing Algernon Moncrieff Reverend Canon Chasuble Lady Bracknell Gwendolen Fairfax Cecily Cardew Miss Prism Merriman Lane What does each name lead you to expect of the character? Characters Do now: Design a diagram which shows the inter-relationships between all characters in this play. Use arrows with labels to explain the relationships. Female Characters Gwendolyn, Cecily, Lady Bracknell, Miss Prism 1st Dimension (a)What they look like? Costume elements (b)What they act like? Acting style, stage directions, interactions with others (c) What they say? Quotes, subjects, topics they refer to, language, epigrams Does this character reveal any themes in particular? 2nd and 3rd Dimensions (a) What others say about them? (b) What / Who in society they represent? (c) Inferences you can make about their character /nature from their speech/behaviour? (d) Who they are related too and their relationships with others? (e) Position they ultimately end up in? Male Characters Jack/Ernest, Algernon, Rev. Chausable, Lane/Merriman 1st Dimension (a)What they look like? Costume elements (b)What they act like? Acting style, stage directions, interactions with others (c) What they say? Quotes, subjects, topics they refer to, language, epigrams Does this character reveal any themes in particular? 2nd and 3rd Dimensions (a) What others say about them? (b) What / Who in society they represent? (c) Inferences you can make about their character /nature from their speech/behaviour? (d) Who they are related too and their relationships with others? (e) Position they ultimately end up in? Do you agree with the following statements concerning the motives of Wilde’s characters? Algernon does not want to be restrained by social and family obligations. He has invented a sick friend so that he can do what he wants when he wants! Cecily has invented an imaginary lover because she is a bored, romantic teenager who dreams of a more exciting life away from the countryside. Jack uses his unreliable brother so that he can play at being both a responsible and serious guardian in the countryside and a riotous partygoing young man when in London. In the case of Jack and Cecily, which “persona” reflects their true personality? For all three characters, what do their imaginary lives suggest about the society in which they live? Class debate: Moot: Parents should have a role in choosing their children’s husband/wife. Prepare an argument FOR this moot. AFFIRMATIVE Prepare an argument AGAINST this moot. NEGATIVE Extension Apply literary and critical theory to the play. Michael Foucalt Aestheticism Queer theory Other?
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