Paired Discussion Questions on Act One
Each pair of students assigned a question will develop a well-edited, carefully worded paragraph response to be taken up in class next time.
1. Why does Jack Worthing, JP [Justice of the Peace] call himself "Ernest" instead when he is in "town" (London)?
2. Why is Miss Fairfax referred to as "The Honourable Gwendolen Fairfax"? Why is this form of address used only formally and never colloquially?
3. Why has Algernon invented an invalid friend named "Bunbury"?
4. Gwendolen is obviously as haughty and headstrong as her mother; how, then, can Lady Bracknell assert some measure of control over her?
5. Jack has an insurmountable impediment to marrying Gwendolen in his background: what, as Lady Bracknell sees it, is this problem? How does she propose that he resolve this problem>
6. How does Wilde use the subject of cucumber sandwiches to reveal the characters of Jack and Algy?
7. How does Wilde satirize the vacuous mentalities and lifestyles of the British aristocracy in Lady Bracknell's interview with Jack?
8. How does Wilde use Jack's cigarette case pique his friend Algy's curiosity and thereby set up the initial complication of the action?
9. How does Wilde use the cigarette case to facilitate the exposition of the dramatic action?
10. Why does Jack intend to "kill off" his fictitious brother if Ernest has been so useful to the bachelor-cum-guardian?
11. The character of Algernon Moncrieff reflects the public persona of the dramatist himself: in what ways in Algy like Wilde?
12. Why is the classical allusion in which Wilde compares Lady Bracknell to the Gorgon particularly apt?
13. The other classical allusion, to the Emperor Augustus, is more oblique: why did Wilde choose the name "Augusta" for Lady Bracknell?
14. Why is it appropriate that Lady Bracknell should ring the doorbell in a "Wagnerian manner"?
15. What does Wilde reveal about Lane, "The Gentleman's Gentleman"?
16. What do such place names as Tunbridge Wells, Shropshire, Grosvenor Square, Belgrave Square, and Half-Moon Street, Mayfair, reveal about the characters?
17. What is the essence of such Wildean aphorisms as the following?" "[Women flirting with their own husbands] looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public."
18. What point is Wilde making about journalism in general and reviewers in particular when Algernon remarks, "You should leave that [literary criticism] to people who haven't been at University. They do it so well in the daily papers"?
19. Jack describes himself politically as a "Liberal Unionist." This contemporary allusion to the Irish Question is really a criticism of a breakaway faction of the Liberal Party. Look up the term, then explain how Wilde uses the reference to imply his own political convictions while simultaneously criticizing Jack's.
20. Analyze the situation at the end of the first act, including Algy's overhearing Jack's real country address, to predict what will happen in the second act.
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Last modified 31 October 2007