The Importance of Being Earnest Quotes Flashcards
(16 cards)
Irony
Satire
3 quotes
“I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them” - Algernon
“I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others” - Cecily
hypocrisy
Quotes on marriage
Lady Harbury
satire
“I hadn’t been there since her poor husband’s death. I never saw a woman so altered. She looks quite twenty years younger… Lady Harbury. Who seems to be living entirely for pleasure now” - Lady Bracknell
“I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief” - Algernon
Cucumber sandwich
hypocrisy
“Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches… [Takes one and eats it]” - Algernon
prop & symbol -> hedonism and deciet
Algernon’s monologue
“She will place me next to Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband… the amount of women who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad”
Lady Bracknell’s satirical monologue
“I think it is high time that Mr Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die… I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me”
Satirical quote on style
“In matters of great importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing” - Gwendolen
Pun on earnest
“You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life” - Algernon
Victorian ideologies
- Aristocratic lineage is superior to earned wealth
- marriage as social and economic alliance (a commodity)
- appearance of morality over actual virtue
Lady Bracknell’s monologue about Jack’s lineage
“To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decenies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution”
“But it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society”
lack of social mobility
Algernon’s Morning Room
+ debt quote
could use this for hedonism
“The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room.”
“Dear child, of course you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon” - lady Bracknell
The handbag
“A hand-bag?” (Lady Bracknell)- shocked that he was in a handbag, not that a child was lost -> trivial
“Is this the hand-bag, Miss Prism?” - Jack
“It seems to be mine… I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvienience being without it all these years” - Miss Prism
materialistic
Sarcasm on marriage
Jack: “I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to propose to her”
Algernon: “I thought you had come up for pleasure? … I call that business”
Muffins stage directions
“[He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack]” - Algy
“[picking up the muffin dish]” - Jack
“There are only two left [takes them]” - Algy
Champagne quote
“when Lord Shoreman and Mr Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed” - Algernon
hedonism
Alienation
“I don’t know that I am much intersted in your family life Lane” - Algernon
“Good Heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches?” - Algernon
Lack of social mobility
A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her.’- Lady Bracknell
Lady Bracknell’s monologue about Jack’s lineage
