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9 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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GWENDOLEN IN "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST" |
Quotes and key information and events. |
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Quote from Gwendolen on Page 47. Act 3, relating to gender and equality. |
“How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, man are infinitely beyond us.” |
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Quote from Gwendolen on Page 15. Act 1, relating to the name 'Ernest'. |
“...My ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest.” |
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Quote from Gwendolen on Page 37. Act 2, relating to Gwendolen's first impressions of Cecily. |
“Cecily Cardew? What a very sweet name! Something tells me that we are going to be great friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions of people are never wrong.” |
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Quote from Gwendolen on Page 41. Act 2, relating to Gwendolen contradicting her first impressions on Cecily. |
“I felt that you were false and deceitful...my first impressions of people are invariably right.’ |
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How does Gwendolen's and Cecily's friendship bring comedy to "The Importance of Being Earnest"? |
Gwendolen's character can be seen as hypocritical which adds humour because she is so fickle and keeps changing her mind, especially with her on-off friendship with Cecily where she loves her one second, and hates her the next. Wilde could be mocking what women were like in society and how they treated each other in order to get there way. Ironically, some of this has not changed to this day. |
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What does this quote show about Gwendolen? "...once a man begins to neglect his domestic duty he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don’t like that. It makes men so very attractive." Act 2. |
A lot of her speech is in paradoxes, such as that quote, as this doesn't make sense because she's saying that she doesn’t like men who don’t stay at home because they are attractive. |
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Explain how Gwendolen's character can be seen as two-dimensional. |
Gwendolen is a valuable character for creating comedy, but her character is two-dimensional as she doesn’t change at all throughout the play—she’s a basic stock character, and although she is eccentric, she is predictably unpredictable because comedies always end in a marriage, so there is never any doubt that she will marry Ernest, whatever his name is. She is although a kind of offensive stereotype of a woman – fickle and mental—which Wilde could be seen as sexist for. |
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What is a stock-character? And how can Gwendolen be seen as a stock-character? |
A stock character is a stereotypical person whom audiences readily recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition.Stock characters are archetypal characters distinguished by their flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. Gwendolen can be seen as a stock-character because she is a stereotypical-city girl with the hope to marry a wealthy man; in this case with a name of Ernest. |
