1. Act 2

2. Country versus Town
Task 1 Explore how the country characters are different to the town characters through: -language -occupations/ activities -attitudes to each other -social class -setting

3. New Characters and Couples
We are introduced to three more significant characters in Act 2:
Cecily
Miss Prism
Dr Chasuble
Find quotations for each of these characters (either their words or words about them) that tell the audience something of the sort of person they are.
There are now three couples established in the play. Collect examples of matched language/ stylistic patterns for the 6 paired characters. How are similar patterns revealed in the action of the play?
Example
Algernon: ‘I am afraid so. It’s a very painful parting.
Cecily: ‘ It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time’.

4. Earnestness and comedy
How is the theme of deceit developed in this Act?
How do running jokes contribute to the comedy of this Act (German; food)?

5. Victorian Society
Wilde’s play presents an obviously artificial world. Below the surface of the light, brittle comedy, however, it is possible to discern a serious subtext that critiques self-righteous morality and hypocrisy, the very aspects of Victorian society that would help to bring about Wilde’s downfall. The play becomes a kind of comic reflection on the absurdity of late Victorian manners and morals.
Where is Wilde mocking Victorian Society in Act 2 e.g. the lines on fiction and education?

6. Comedy in Act II
Jack: I mean of course you are continually christening
Miss Prism: …I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject. They don’t seem to know what thrift is.
This implies the oblivious nature of the lower classes. They believe that with more children their wealth will increase, however Prism realises that with more children, resources deplete.
Cecily: I have never met any real wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like everyone else.
Victorian society is preoccupied with people creating a happy façade bound by strict morals and values. Wilde alludes here to the fact that people in society are in fact very different than they appear.
Miss Prism: Mr Worthing has many troubles in his life. Idle merriment and triviality would be out of place in his conversation.
This quote refers to Miss Prism saying that there is no room for fun and happiness in the life of a serious person in victorian society.
Miss Prism: No married man is ever attractive except to his wife.
Wilde is saying that women are not attracted to men for their personality, but instead for what they are able to offer the woman.

7. The aristocratic Victorians valued duty and respectability above all else. Earnestness — a determined and serious desire to do the correct thing — was at the top of the code of conduct. Appearance was everything, and style was much more important than substance. So, while a person could lead a secret life, carry on affairs within marriage or have children outside of wedlock, society would look the other way as long as the appearance of propriety was maintained. For this reason, Wilde questions whether the more important or serious issues of the day are overlooked in favor of trivial concerns about appearance. Gwendolen is the paragon of this value. Her marriage proposal must be performed correctly, and her brother even practices correct proposals. Gwendolen's aristocratic attitude is "In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing." The trivial is important; the serious is overlooked.

8. The tea ceremony in Act II is a hilarious example of Wilde's contention that manners and appearance are everything. The guise of correctness is the framework for war. Both women, thinking they are engaged to the same person, wage a civilized "war" over the tea service while the servants silently watch. When Gwendolen requests no sugar, Cecily adds four lumps to her cup. Although she asks for bread and butter, Gwendolen is given a large slice of cake. Her true feelings come out only in an aside that Cecily supposedly cannot hear: "Detestable girl!" Gwendolen is also appalled to find that Cecily is living in Jack's country home, and she inquires about a chaperone. Wilde gives examples again and again of the aristocrat's concern for propriety, that everything is done properly no matter what those good manners might be camouflaging.

9. Tea parties
Re-read the two tea parties in Act II – the first with Gwendolen and Cecily and the second with Jack and Algernon. Both are the settings for quarrels. Perform both scenes, one after the other. Then play them almost simultaneously – using a line from each scene alternately. _ Which scene do you find the most amusing? _ What light is cast by these scenes on the characters of those involved?

10. Significance of the tea party scene
‘There is no time for the shallow masking of manners’ – The tea party scene is important because it highlights how Victorian people put up a façade. ‘mask’ connotates pretense.
Shows the social restraint of the time when it came to expressing opinions and emotions. Both characters are mad at each other however, social protocol demands that they sit and have a ‘courteous’ cup of tea with each other.
The tea party scene is helpful in portraying the childish nature of the upper classes, with Cecily taking the lead. ‘Cecily looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup’. The upper class fails to keep up a façade and reveal their flaws to the lower class. (Merriman).
Competition between the upper and middle class is set up clearly here. It concludes with the mockery of the upper class ‘This is what the newspapers are calling agricultural depression, is it not? I believe aristocracy are suffering very much from it at present’.

11. Religion and Servitude
What attitudes towards religion appear in this Act? Consider christening; church services; relevance of religion to daily life
Compare Lane, Merriman and Miss Prism as employees and as comic characters. What do they bring to the play, which would otherwise be missing? 

12. Bunburying verses Hypocrisy
The difference between hypocrisy and mere fiction, or “Bunburying,” begins to emerge when Jack enters and declares that Ernest is dead. He is dressed in full Victorian mourning regalia, a very elaborate affair, creating the play’s most pungent visual gag. Jack has gone overboard in carrying out the deception of his double life, and his behaviour highlights the essential difference between hypocrisy and “Bunburying.” Algernon imposes on Cecily by pretending to be someone he’s not, but he is still less malicious than Jack. First, Algernon scarcely knows Cecily, and second, he isn’t actually leading a double life. Algernon has created a fictional friend, but he does not actually pretend to be that friend. When he finally does take on a second identity, it is in the company of near-strangers. Jack, however, not only lies to the people closest to him, but he lies elaborately, becoming, for all his amiability, a lowlife. Jack has a fundamental charmlessness to his attitude toward other people. In a theater production, his deception is compounded: the audience watches an actor pretending to be someone pretending. Jack’s pretense seems almost never-ending.

13. Rivalry
Jack : Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Algernon: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. In Act II, Jack and Algernon’s predictions about Gwendolen and Cecily’s relationship seem to come true. _ After initial suspicion on Gwendolen’s part, she and Cecily declare their friendship. When they discover that they are both engaged to ‘Ernest’, the mood changes. They cannot show their feelings in front of the servants, so they find ways of being subtly rude to each other. _ Find several examples of the ways in which they manage to insult each other. Which of them is the most successful? _ Work in a group of four. Two of you play Gwendolen and Cecily. The other two speak the girl’s thoughts after each line of dialogue.

14. Activities Complete character profiles for this act.
Add to the flow diagram which you started for Act 1.

15. Comedy Homework Read the remainder of Act 2.
Look back through this Act and find examples of the following comic devices:
Inversion (Inverted logic)
Satire
Epigrams
Irony
Foreshadowing (hints of things to come)
Puns
Look back at the PPP on Victorian Period and Wilde if you need a reminder of what these are.