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Act II TIOBE ("Hunger" & hedonism vs fashionable (Hunger…
Act II TIOBE
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Class confrontation, hierarchy
Futility
Disdain g> c, the classic vs the wicked
Class boundaries Dr C & Miss Prism. C takes orders from J & local magistrate. scholarly , yet bottom of soc ladder in countryside. Miss Pr must earn her living as a governess, = servant of the wealthy.
Merriman's humor vs J seriousness. (cf name hidden humor). During arg A going back LDN, Merri ,= accommodates upper-class employers + carefully rehearses his facial expressions to show nothing = artificial, rehearsed upper class soc.
Merri orchestrate comings and goings: proper English servant knows his place.// Miss Pr chastises C for watering flowers — a servant's job. Vignettes, within the context of a farce, = Victorian concept that everyone has duty,& place.
Novels & fiction
The diary symbolism
Miss Prism bc failed writer, thinks her writing & readings more important cf J left, she is the romance character failed life
"I wrote one myself in earlier days" = pride, thinks better than others?, sadness & regrets = ambitions vs soc conventions & expectations , teaches & became what fought against
Cecily dislike for study // dislike for governor strict vs like fiction & diary = dreams of a better life
Gwendolyn "proofs" of her engagement // contract, "interesting to read" = selfish, over estimation
Cecily , "I keep a diary un order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life"
Used in soc as maturity, weapon cf cecily uses diary as marriage contract
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fiction =/ life, simplicity vs complex hurting
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C diary of girlish fancies, + interesting than reality. Bc educa° boring, interesting fantasy life -> comprises her secret and self-directed education. interested in immediate gratification, "You are under some strange mistake. I am not little." Algy taken aback by forwardness. Imp : new and more assertive woman.
J&A christened Ernest,-> absurd + fiction-based Jr- never christened vs Algernon “constitution can stand it.” confrontations cannot and will not be decided, since their very subjects essentially do not exist.
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Mockery
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Of religion
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Coded convo Miss P & Chas-> canon's celibacy, joke, defends church's stand celibacy, Miss Pr: remaining single more temptation to O+.
Miss Pr Chasuble comic of religious zeal and relation to Vict morals. Reli=dry, meaningless, & expensive, sermons interchangeable, adapted to be joyful or distressing, hackneyed, empty words of sermons
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Other self,
alter ego,
Same person, 2 Identities
“three-volume novel”= Miss Prism herself has had an alter ego at some point, capacity for telling stories
Jack’s brother graduates to “unfortunate,” which Miss Prism uses as a euphemism for “immoral,” “bad,” and downright “wicked,”
2 person, 1 identity, formatted by soc
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J& A, J"You won't be able to run down to the country quite so often as you used to do, dear Algy."You won't be able to disappear to London quite so frequently as your wicked custom was." // minuet, choreographed lines= stylized, artificial milieu = art of manners + social discourse.
G/C engaged Ernest Worthing = claims on him cf diaries,- date of her engagement,= written something down => fact. However, untrue,coz neither lover is Ernest= C&G right and wrong
Déjà-vu, parallelism repeated in time = all similar, couples & love relationships =/ diff
Algy + cecily= Jack + gwendolyn cf "if I had other name" "i fell in love" , romance parody, fell in love with concept of love , gravity, seriousness, down to earth C invents love // G makes proposal
Attack concepts of romance and courtship: G & J : proposals must be made correctly,C & ALG mockery of conventional courtship and romance.
Miss P t: memory is all one needs to remember one's life, C "Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened." False memory = romance in Miss Pr novel. Girl naïve ideas marriage ; vs upper-class soc business deal, $ security and family names traded for wives.
C "engaged for 3 months, where, when and how engagement took place." letters written by Ernest beautiful words "badly spelled." = superficial Vict approach to courtship + Algernon comments on the weather in the same breath as their engagement.
// repeat convo, liking & disliking each other w/ same words. Both marry Earnest G, "My first impressions of people are never wrong,"C, "My first impressions of people are invariably right."