"[Your] mind is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks: the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock or any buttock." A clown says this in which play?
All's Well That Ends Well. The clown says this to the Countess of Roussilon in 2. 2. 16-18
"The gold I give will I melt and pour down thy ill uttering throat". Who says this in "Cleopatra"?
Cleopatra. "Antony and Cleopatra", 2. 5. 34-35
"[His brain] is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."
As You Like It. "As You Like It", 2. 7. 38-40
"[You] lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super servicable, finical rogue." From 'King Lear'; to whom would you attribute this?
Earl of Kent. "King Lear", 2. 2. 16-17
"[Your] virginity breeds mites, much like cheese." Which play?
All's Well That Ends Well. Parolles said this to Helena in the palace of the Countess of Roussilon. "All's Well That Ends Well", 1. 1. 139
"There's many a man hath more hair than wit." Play, please.
The Comedy of Errors. Antipholus of Syracuse talking with Dromio of Syracuse in 'The Comedy of Errors', 2. 2. 81-82
"We leek in your chimney." Which 'regnal' play?
Henry IV pt. I. Henry IV pt. I, 2. 1. 19
"You sullion! You rampollion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!"
Henry IV pt. II. Sir John Falstaff was speaking to the hostess Quickly. 2. 1. 58-59
"He neve broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk.' This was said by a mere boy about whom in 'Henry V'?
Nym. Henry V, 3. 2. 42-43
"He's a tried and valiant soldier." "So is my horse." Which play?
Julius Caesar. Octavian and Antony in discussion. 4. 1. 28-29
"[You] leather-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch!"
Henry IV pt. I. So said Prince Henry. 2. 4. 68-70
"[Thou] art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrol bitch." Which 'kingly' play?
King Lear. The Earl of Kent to Oswald, steward to Goneril. 2. 2. 18-21
"Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, thou lily-liver'd boy." This is from Macbeth, but who says this?
Macbeth. Macbeth says this to a servant. 5. 3. 14-15
"What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own do you?" Who says this in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?
Bottom. Bottom, with his ass's head, says this to Snout. 3. 1. 111-112
"Scratching could not it make it worse, 'twere such a face as yours." Who says this in response to Benedick of Padua in 'Much Ado About Nothing'?
Beatrice. 1. 1. 126-127
"Some...strange bull leap'd your father's cow And got a calf in that same noble feat Much like to you, for you have just his bleat." Also from 'Much Ado About Nothing', this time with Benedick speaking to whom?
Claudio. 5. 4. 49-51
"Hang! Beg! Starve! Die in the Streets!" I think this quote will be easy for most so fill in the blank. The Play's name, please.
Romeo and Juliet. Capulet says this to Juliet whilst ranting and raving about her proposed marriage to Paris. 3. 5. 192
"Thou hast no more brain than I have in my elbows." The play, please.
Troilus and Cressida. Thersites says this to Ajax. 2. 1. 45-46
"I hate thee, Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave." The play?
Winter's Tale. Winter's Tale, 1. 2. 300-1
...and last but not least insulting: "If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt."
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Thurio insults Valentine in front of a lady. 2. 4. 37-38
Monday, October 25, 2010
Quotes from The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare. The work was one of Shakespeare's last works; the play was produced in 1611. In The Tempest, Prospero and his daughter have lived on an island for 12 years. They were stranded on the island when Antonio usurped Prospero's rightful place as Duke of Milan. Here are few quotes from The Tempest.
"None that I love more than myself. You are a councillor; if you can command these elements to silence and work the peace of the presence, we will not hand a rope more - use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hours, if it so hap."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, broom, furze, anything. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"in my false brother
awakened an evil nature, and my trust,
like a good parent, did beget !of him
A falsehood in its contrary as great
As my trust was, which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound..."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Library
Was dukedom large enough"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"good wombs have borne bad sons."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Would I might
But ever see that man!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Hell is empty
And all the devils are here"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made no mistakes, served
Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise
To bate me a full year."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye
And blister you all o'er!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"To name the bigger light and how the less"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"violate
The honour of my child."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Might I but through my prison once a day
behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth
Let liberty make use of; space enough
Have I in such a prison."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"doublet is as fresh as the first day I wore it?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"My lord Sebastian,
The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
And time to speak it in--you rub the sore
When you should bring the plaster."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"'Tis as impossible that he's undrowned
as he that sleeps here swims."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
The mind that I do, what a sleep were this
For your advancement! Do you understand me?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"Were I in England now, as I once was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday-fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man--any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"dropped from heaven?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.
A plague upon the tyrant I serve!
I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
thou wondrous man."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
and makes my labours pleasures. O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed,
And he's composed of harshness."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"Poor worm, thou art infected!
This visitation shows it."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
and crown what I profess with kind event
If I speak true; if hollowly, invert
what best is boded me to mischief: I,
Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,
Do love, prize, honour you."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"Act to Trinculo Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou! I would my valiant master would destroy thee. I do not lie"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"What, what did I? I did nothing! I'll go farther off."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"And that most deeply to consider is
The beauty of his daughter. He himself
Calls her nonpareil. I never saw a woman
But only Sycorax, my dam, and she;
But she as far surpasseth Sycorax
As great'st does least."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"None that I love more than myself. You are a councillor; if you can command these elements to silence and work the peace of the presence, we will not hand a rope more - use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hours, if it so hap."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, broom, furze, anything. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.1
"Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"in my false brother
awakened an evil nature, and my trust,
like a good parent, did beget !of him
A falsehood in its contrary as great
As my trust was, which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound..."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Library
Was dukedom large enough"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"good wombs have borne bad sons."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Would I might
But ever see that man!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Hell is empty
And all the devils are here"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made no mistakes, served
Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise
To bate me a full year."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye
And blister you all o'er!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"To name the bigger light and how the less"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"violate
The honour of my child."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"Might I but through my prison once a day
behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth
Let liberty make use of; space enough
Have I in such a prison."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
"doublet is as fresh as the first day I wore it?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"My lord Sebastian,
The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
And time to speak it in--you rub the sore
When you should bring the plaster."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"'Tis as impossible that he's undrowned
as he that sleeps here swims."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
The mind that I do, what a sleep were this
For your advancement! Do you understand me?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.1
"Were I in England now, as I once was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday-fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man--any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"dropped from heaven?"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.
A plague upon the tyrant I serve!
I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
thou wondrous man."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 2.2
"The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
and makes my labours pleasures. O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed,
And he's composed of harshness."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"Poor worm, thou art infected!
This visitation shows it."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
and crown what I profess with kind event
If I speak true; if hollowly, invert
what best is boded me to mischief: I,
Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,
Do love, prize, honour you."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.1
"As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"Act to Trinculo Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou! I would my valiant master would destroy thee. I do not lie"
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"What, what did I? I did nothing! I'll go farther off."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
"And that most deeply to consider is
The beauty of his daughter. He himself
Calls her nonpareil. I never saw a woman
But only Sycorax, my dam, and she;
But she as far surpasseth Sycorax
As great'st does least."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Class Conflict
One might think aristocrats would see the error of their ways and try to be more virtuous in a moral sense. However, they see their attitudes as the virtuous high ground and believe that other classes should conform to aristocratic attitudes and see the error of their own ways. When Miss Prism seems to chide the lower classes for producing so many children for Chasuble to christen, she appears to see it as a question of thrift. "I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject [of christenings]. But they don't seem to know what thrift is." Chasuble speaks humorously of the penchant of the aristocracy to dabble in good causes that do not disrupt their own lives too much. He mentions a sermon he gave for the Society for the Prevention of Discontent Among the Upper Orders. To the Victorians, reform means keeping the current social and economic system in place by perpetuating upper-class virtues and economy.
Every page, every line of dialogue, every character, each symbol, and every stage direction in The Importance of Being Earnest is bent on supporting Wilde's contention that social change happens as a matter of thoughtfulness. Art can bring about such thoughtfulness. If the eccentric or unusual is to be replaced with correct behavior and thought, human sympathy and compassion suffer. If strict moral values leave no room for question, a society loses much of what is known as humanity.
Every page, every line of dialogue, every character, each symbol, and every stage direction in The Importance of Being Earnest is bent on supporting Wilde's contention that social change happens as a matter of thoughtfulness. Art can bring about such thoughtfulness. If the eccentric or unusual is to be replaced with correct behavior and thought, human sympathy and compassion suffer. If strict moral values leave no room for question, a society loses much of what is known as humanity.
Perpetuating the Upper Class
The strict Victorian class system, in which members of the same class marry each other, perpetuates the gulf between the upper, middle and lower classes. Snobbish, aristocratic attitudes further preserve the distance between these groups. Jack explains to Lady Bracknell that he has no politics. He considers himself a Liberal Unionist. Lady Bracknell finds his answer satisfactory because it means that he is a Tory, or a conservative. Jack's home in London is on the "unfashionable side" of Belgrave Square, so "that could easily be altered." When Jack inquires whether she means the "unfashionable" or the side of the street, Lady Bracknell explains, "Both, if necessary." The French Revolution is held up as an example of what happens when the lower class is taught to question its betters. Education is not for learning to think; it is for mindlessly following convention. Lady Bracknell approves of ignorance. In fact, she explains, "The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square." Thinking causes discontent, and discontent leads to social revolution. That simply will not do.
Courtship and Marriage
Oscar Wilde felt these Victorian values were perpetuated through courtship and marriage, both of which had their own rules and rituals. Marriage was a careful selection process. When Algernon explains that he plans to become engaged to Jack's ward, Cecily, Lady Bracknell decides, "I think some preliminary enquiry on my part would not be out of place." When Lady Bracknell pummels Jack with questions about parents, politics, fortune, addresses, expectations, family solicitors, and legal encumbrances, his answers must be proper and appropriate for a legal union between the two families to be approved. Fortune is especially important, and when Jack and Cecily's fortunes are both appropriate, the next problem is family background. Because Jack does not know his parents, Lady Bracknell suggests he find a parent — any with the right lineage will do — and find one quickly. Appearance, once again, is everything. Duty (not joy, love or passion) is important, further substantiating Algy's contention that marriage is a loveless duty: "A man who marries without knowing Bunbury [an excuse for pleasure] has a very tedious time of it." Marriage is presented as a legal contract between consenting families of similar fortunes; background, love, and happiness have little to do with it.
Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Importance-of-Being-Earnest-Critical-Essays-Courtship-and-Marriage.id-29,pageNum-150.html#ixzz0w4jzsjsm
Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Importance-of-Being-Earnest-Critical-Essays-Courtship-and-Marriage.id-29,pageNum-150.html#ixzz0w4jzsjsm
Passion and Morality
Wilde's contention that a whole world exists separate from Victorian manners and appearances is demonstrated in the girlish musings of Cecily. When she hears that Jack's "wicked" brother Ernest is around, she is intensely desirous of meeting him. She says to Algernon, "I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time." The thought of meeting someone who lives outside the bounds of prudery and rules is exciting to naïve Cecily. Even using the name Ernest for his secret life is ironic because Algernon is not being dutiful — earnest — in living a secret life.
Various characters in the play allude to passion, sex and moral looseness. Chasuble and Prism's flirting and coded conversations about things sexual, Algernon stuffing his face to satisfy his hungers, the diaries (which are the acceptable venues for passion), and Miss Prism's three-volume novel are all examples of an inner life covered up by suffocating rules. Even Algernon's aesthetic life of posing as the dandy, dressing with studied care, neglecting his bills, being unemployed, and pursuing pleasure instead of duty is an example of Victorians valuing trivialities. Once Algernon marries he will have suffocating rules and appearances to keep up. Wilde's characters allude to another life beneath the surface of Victorian correctness. Much of the humor in this play draws a fine line between the outer life of appearances and the inner life of rebellion against the social code that says life must be lived earnestly.
Various characters in the play allude to passion, sex and moral looseness. Chasuble and Prism's flirting and coded conversations about things sexual, Algernon stuffing his face to satisfy his hungers, the diaries (which are the acceptable venues for passion), and Miss Prism's three-volume novel are all examples of an inner life covered up by suffocating rules. Even Algernon's aesthetic life of posing as the dandy, dressing with studied care, neglecting his bills, being unemployed, and pursuing pleasure instead of duty is an example of Victorians valuing trivialities. Once Algernon marries he will have suffocating rules and appearances to keep up. Wilde's characters allude to another life beneath the surface of Victorian correctness. Much of the humor in this play draws a fine line between the outer life of appearances and the inner life of rebellion against the social code that says life must be lived earnestly.
Secret Lives
Because Victorian norms were so repressive and suffocating, Wilde creates episodes in which his characters live secret lives or create false impressions to express who they really are. Jack and Algernon both create personas to be free. These other lives allow them to neglect their duties — in Algernon's case — or to leave their duties and pursue pleasure — in Jack's case. Very early in Act I, Wilde sets up these secret lives, and they follow through until the final act. When Jack and Algernon realize their marriages will end their pursuit of pleasure, they both admit rather earnestly, "You won't be able to run down to the country quite so often as you used to do, dear Algy," and "You won't be able to disappear to London quite so frequently as your wicked custom was." Marriage means the end of freedom, pleasure, wickedness, and the beginning of duty and doing what is expected. Of course, Jack and Algernon could continue to don their masks after they marry Gwendolen and Cecily, but they will have to be cautious and make sure society is looking the other way.
Popular Culture
The popular attitudes of the day about the French, literary criticism, and books are also subjects of Wilde's humor. Wilde wittily asserts that Victorians believe that nothing good comes from France, except for (in Wilde's mind) the occasional lesbian maid. Otherwise, France is a good place to kill off and request the burial of Ernest. As the good reverend says, "I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last." Literary criticism is for "people who haven't been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers." Modern books are filled with truths that are never pure or simple, and scandalous books should be read but definitely in secret. Again Wilde criticizes the Victorians for believing that appearance is much more important than truth. He takes the opportunity to insert many examples of popular thought, revealing bias, social bigotry, thoughtlessness and blind assumptions.
Religion
Another serious subject — religion — is also a topic of satire. While concerns of the next world would be an appropriate topic for people of this world, it seems to be shoved aside in the Victorian era. Canon Chasuble is the symbol of religious thought, and Wilde uses him to show how little the Victorians concerned themselves with attitudes reflecting religious faith. Chasuble can rechristen, marry, bury, and encourage at a moment's notice with interchangeable sermons filled with meaningless platitudes. Even Lady Bracknell mentions that christenings are a waste of time and, especially, money. Chasuble's pious exterior betrays a racing pulse for Miss Prism: "Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's pupil, I would hang upon her lips." Quickly correcting his error, the minister hides his hardly holy desires in the language of metaphor. Wilde's satire here is gentle and humorous, chiding a society for its self-importance.
The Absence of Compassion
Two areas in which the Victorians showed little sympathy or compassion were illness and death. When Lady Bracknell hears that Bunbury died after his doctors told him he could not live, she feels he has — in dying — acted appropriately because he had the correct medical advice. "Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life." Lady Bracknell, like other aristocrats, is too busy worrying about her own life, the advantages of her daughter's marriage, and her nephew's errors in judgment to feel any compassion for others. Gwendolen, learning from her mother, is totally self-absorbed and definite about what she wants. She tells Cecily, "I never travel without my diary. One should have something sensational to read in the train." Wilde seems to be taking to task a social class that thinks only of itself, showing little compassion or sympathy for the trials of those less fortunate.
Duty and Respectability
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.
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.
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.
Rev. Chasuble & Miss Prism
These two comic and slightly grotesque caricatures are less developed than the principal players, and Wilde uses them to comment on religion and morality.
The minister is an intellectual character who speaks in metaphors. He is a "typical" country vicar who refers often to canon law and gives fatherly advice. Absent-mindedly in charge of his parishioners' souls, he performs christenings and interchangeable sermons, depending on the situation. Occasionally, however, his mask slips, and an interior world of lusty desire for Miss Prism appears. Often absent-minded, but always spouting moral platitudes, he symbolizes Wilde's view of Victorian religion and respectability.
Miss Prism is also intellectual, but in a literary way. She is a creative writer and a parody of "a woman with a past." She clearly had dreams of becoming a sensational romantic novelist, but, alas, she must make a living, so she is instead the jailer of Cecily and the guardian of her education and virtue. She, like the minister, makes constant moral judgments. Her favorite line, even to dead Ernest, is "As a man sows, so shall he reap." Repeating this often allows Wilde to show how meaningless and clichéd religion and values have become. As an instrument of the aristocracy, Miss Prism educates Cecily to conform to the dry, meaningless intellectual pursuits designed to keep the status quo. But, like Chasuble, beneath her surface she has a hedonistic streak; often her language slips when she ventures outside her Victorian appearance. She persists in inviting Chasuble to discuss marriage, pursues him diligently, and falls into his arms at the end.
Miss Prism is an appropriate character to uncover Jack's true history because she also is not what she seems. Wilde uses her to show what happens when dreams cannot be pursued in a society of strict social structure and stringent moral guidelines. Both she and Chasuble — with their lack of social opportunities — become servants to the system, promoting its continuation.
The minister is an intellectual character who speaks in metaphors. He is a "typical" country vicar who refers often to canon law and gives fatherly advice. Absent-mindedly in charge of his parishioners' souls, he performs christenings and interchangeable sermons, depending on the situation. Occasionally, however, his mask slips, and an interior world of lusty desire for Miss Prism appears. Often absent-minded, but always spouting moral platitudes, he symbolizes Wilde's view of Victorian religion and respectability.
Miss Prism is also intellectual, but in a literary way. She is a creative writer and a parody of "a woman with a past." She clearly had dreams of becoming a sensational romantic novelist, but, alas, she must make a living, so she is instead the jailer of Cecily and the guardian of her education and virtue. She, like the minister, makes constant moral judgments. Her favorite line, even to dead Ernest, is "As a man sows, so shall he reap." Repeating this often allows Wilde to show how meaningless and clichéd religion and values have become. As an instrument of the aristocracy, Miss Prism educates Cecily to conform to the dry, meaningless intellectual pursuits designed to keep the status quo. But, like Chasuble, beneath her surface she has a hedonistic streak; often her language slips when she ventures outside her Victorian appearance. She persists in inviting Chasuble to discuss marriage, pursues him diligently, and falls into his arms at the end.
Miss Prism is an appropriate character to uncover Jack's true history because she also is not what she seems. Wilde uses her to show what happens when dreams cannot be pursued in a society of strict social structure and stringent moral guidelines. Both she and Chasuble — with their lack of social opportunities — become servants to the system, promoting its continuation.
Gwendolen Fairfax & Cecily Cardew
Both Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew provide Wilde with opportunities to discuss ideas and tout the New Woman near the turn of the century. They are curiously similar in many ways, but as the writer's tools, they have their differences.
Both women are smart, persistent and in pursuit of goals in which they take the initiative. Gwendolen follows Jack to the country — an atmosphere rather alien to her experiences, and Cecily pursues Algernon from the moment she lays eyes on him. Both women are perfectly capable of outwitting their jailers. Gwendolen escapes from her dominating mother, Lady Bracknell; Cecily outwits Jack by arranging for Algernon to stay, and she also manages to escape Miss Prism to carry on a tryst with her future fiancé. The first moment Cecily meets Algernon, she firmly explains her identity with a no-nonsense reaction to his patronizing comment.
For both women, appearances and style are important. Gwendolen must have the perfect proposal performed in the correct manner and must marry a man named Ernest simply because of the name's connotations. Cecily also craves appearance and style. She believes Jack's brother is a wicked man, and though she has never met such a man, she thinks the idea sounds romantic. She toys with rebelliously and romantically pursuing the "wicked brother," but she has full intentions of reforming him to the correct and appropriate appearance. The respectable name of Ernest for a husband is important to her. Both women, despite their differences, are products of a world in which how one does something is more important than why.
Cecily and Gwendolen are dissimilar in some aspects of their personalities and backgrounds. Gwendolen, on one hand, is confident, worldly, and at home in the big city of London. While her mother has taught her to be shortsighted like the lorgnette through which Gwendolen peers at the world, she has also brought her daughter up in a traditional family, the only such family in the entire play. On the other hand, Cecily is introduced in a garden setting, the child of a more sheltered, natural, and less-sophisticated environment. She has no mother figure other than the grim Miss Prism, and she has a guardian instead of a parent.
Gwendolen provides Wilde with the opportunity to discuss marriage, courtship and the absurdities of life. Her pronouncements on trivialities and her total contradictions of what she said two lines earlier make her the perfect instrument for Wilde to provide humor and to comment on inane Victorian attitudes. Cecily provides Wilde with an opportunity to discuss dull and boring education, Victorian values, money and security, and the repression of passion. More sheltered than Gwendolen, Cecily is still expected to learn her boring lessons and make a good marriage.
Both women seem ideally matched to their fiancés. Gwendolen is very no-nonsense and straightforward like Jack. She believes in appearances, upper-class snobbery, correct behavior, and the ability to discuss, ad nauseam, the trivial. Jack too is practical and takes his responsibilities quite seriously. While he has a sense of humor, he also realizes — especially in the country — that he must maintain a proper image and pay his bills. Cecily and Algernon are both guided by passion and immediate gratification. More emotional than their counterparts, they pursue life with a vengeance, aiming for what they desire and oblivious to the consequences. Both couples indulge in witty epigrams and are perfectly matched.
While Wilde spends most of his play satirizing Victorian ideals of courtship and marriage, he gets the last laugh with his female characters. Despite their positions in society as victims of the machinations of men, marriage contracts and property, the women are the strong characters who are firmly in control. Wilde provides two female characters who lack Lady Bracknell's ruthlessness, but who have the strength and practical sense that the men lack.
Both women are smart, persistent and in pursuit of goals in which they take the initiative. Gwendolen follows Jack to the country — an atmosphere rather alien to her experiences, and Cecily pursues Algernon from the moment she lays eyes on him. Both women are perfectly capable of outwitting their jailers. Gwendolen escapes from her dominating mother, Lady Bracknell; Cecily outwits Jack by arranging for Algernon to stay, and she also manages to escape Miss Prism to carry on a tryst with her future fiancé. The first moment Cecily meets Algernon, she firmly explains her identity with a no-nonsense reaction to his patronizing comment.
For both women, appearances and style are important. Gwendolen must have the perfect proposal performed in the correct manner and must marry a man named Ernest simply because of the name's connotations. Cecily also craves appearance and style. She believes Jack's brother is a wicked man, and though she has never met such a man, she thinks the idea sounds romantic. She toys with rebelliously and romantically pursuing the "wicked brother," but she has full intentions of reforming him to the correct and appropriate appearance. The respectable name of Ernest for a husband is important to her. Both women, despite their differences, are products of a world in which how one does something is more important than why.
Cecily and Gwendolen are dissimilar in some aspects of their personalities and backgrounds. Gwendolen, on one hand, is confident, worldly, and at home in the big city of London. While her mother has taught her to be shortsighted like the lorgnette through which Gwendolen peers at the world, she has also brought her daughter up in a traditional family, the only such family in the entire play. On the other hand, Cecily is introduced in a garden setting, the child of a more sheltered, natural, and less-sophisticated environment. She has no mother figure other than the grim Miss Prism, and she has a guardian instead of a parent.
Gwendolen provides Wilde with the opportunity to discuss marriage, courtship and the absurdities of life. Her pronouncements on trivialities and her total contradictions of what she said two lines earlier make her the perfect instrument for Wilde to provide humor and to comment on inane Victorian attitudes. Cecily provides Wilde with an opportunity to discuss dull and boring education, Victorian values, money and security, and the repression of passion. More sheltered than Gwendolen, Cecily is still expected to learn her boring lessons and make a good marriage.
Both women seem ideally matched to their fiancés. Gwendolen is very no-nonsense and straightforward like Jack. She believes in appearances, upper-class snobbery, correct behavior, and the ability to discuss, ad nauseam, the trivial. Jack too is practical and takes his responsibilities quite seriously. While he has a sense of humor, he also realizes — especially in the country — that he must maintain a proper image and pay his bills. Cecily and Algernon are both guided by passion and immediate gratification. More emotional than their counterparts, they pursue life with a vengeance, aiming for what they desire and oblivious to the consequences. Both couples indulge in witty epigrams and are perfectly matched.
While Wilde spends most of his play satirizing Victorian ideals of courtship and marriage, he gets the last laugh with his female characters. Despite their positions in society as victims of the machinations of men, marriage contracts and property, the women are the strong characters who are firmly in control. Wilde provides two female characters who lack Lady Bracknell's ruthlessness, but who have the strength and practical sense that the men lack.
Lady Augusta Bracknell
The most memorable character and one who has a tremendous impact on the audience is Lady Augusta Bracknell. Wilde's audience would have identified most with her titled position and bearing. Wilde humorously makes her the tool of the conflict, and much of the satire. For the play to end as a comedy, her objections and obstacles must be dealt with and overcome.
Lady Bracknell is first and foremost a symbol of Victorian earnestness and the unhappiness it brings as a result. She is powerful, arrogant, ruthless to the extreme, conservative, and proper. In many ways, she represents Wilde's opinion of Victorian upper-class negativity, conservative and repressive values, and power.
Her opinions and mannerisms betray a careful and calculated speaking pattern. She is able to go round for round with the other characters on witty epigrams and social repartee. Despite her current position, Lady Bracknell was not always a member of the upper class; she was a social climber bent on marrying into the aristocracy. As a former member of the lower class, she represents the righteousness of the formerly excluded. Because she is now Lady Bracknell, she has opinions on society, marriage, religion, money, illness, death, and respectability. She is another of Wilde's inventions to present his satire on these subjects.
As a ruthless social climber and spokesperson for the status quo, Lady Bracknell's behavior enforces social discrimination and excludes those who do not fit into her new class. Her daughter's unsuitable marriage is an excellent example of how she flexes her muscles. She sees marriage as an alliance for property and social security; love or passion is not part of the mix. She bends the rules to suit her pleasure because she can. Jack will be placed on her list of eligible suitors only if he can pass her unpredictable and difficult test. She gives him ruthlessly "correct," but immoral, advice on his parents. "I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." It matters not how Jack finds parent(s), just that he do it, following the requirements for acceptability.
Lady Bracknell's authority and power are extended over every character in the play. Her decision about the suitability of both marriages provides the conflict of the story. She tells her daughter quite explicitly, "Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact." Done, decided, finished. She interrogates both Jack and Cecily, bribes Gwendolen's maid, and looks down her nose at both Chasuble and Prism.
Her social commentary on class structure is Wilde's commentary about how the privileged class of England keeps its power. Lady Bracknell firmly believes the middle and lower classes should never be taught to think or question. It would breed anarchy and the possibility that the upper class might lose its privileged position.
Wilde has created, with Augusta Bracknell, a memorable instrument of his satiric wit, questioning all he sees in Victorian upper-class society.
Lady Bracknell is first and foremost a symbol of Victorian earnestness and the unhappiness it brings as a result. She is powerful, arrogant, ruthless to the extreme, conservative, and proper. In many ways, she represents Wilde's opinion of Victorian upper-class negativity, conservative and repressive values, and power.
Her opinions and mannerisms betray a careful and calculated speaking pattern. She is able to go round for round with the other characters on witty epigrams and social repartee. Despite her current position, Lady Bracknell was not always a member of the upper class; she was a social climber bent on marrying into the aristocracy. As a former member of the lower class, she represents the righteousness of the formerly excluded. Because she is now Lady Bracknell, she has opinions on society, marriage, religion, money, illness, death, and respectability. She is another of Wilde's inventions to present his satire on these subjects.
As a ruthless social climber and spokesperson for the status quo, Lady Bracknell's behavior enforces social discrimination and excludes those who do not fit into her new class. Her daughter's unsuitable marriage is an excellent example of how she flexes her muscles. She sees marriage as an alliance for property and social security; love or passion is not part of the mix. She bends the rules to suit her pleasure because she can. Jack will be placed on her list of eligible suitors only if he can pass her unpredictable and difficult test. She gives him ruthlessly "correct," but immoral, advice on his parents. "I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." It matters not how Jack finds parent(s), just that he do it, following the requirements for acceptability.
Lady Bracknell's authority and power are extended over every character in the play. Her decision about the suitability of both marriages provides the conflict of the story. She tells her daughter quite explicitly, "Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact." Done, decided, finished. She interrogates both Jack and Cecily, bribes Gwendolen's maid, and looks down her nose at both Chasuble and Prism.
Her social commentary on class structure is Wilde's commentary about how the privileged class of England keeps its power. Lady Bracknell firmly believes the middle and lower classes should never be taught to think or question. It would breed anarchy and the possibility that the upper class might lose its privileged position.
Wilde has created, with Augusta Bracknell, a memorable instrument of his satiric wit, questioning all he sees in Victorian upper-class society.
Algernon (Algy) Moncrieff
Algernon Moncrieff is a member of the wealthy class, living a life of total bachelorhood in a fashionable part of London. He is younger than Jack, takes less responsibility, and is always frivolous and irreverent. As a symbol, he is wittiness and aestheticism personified. He — like Jack — functions as a Victorian male with a life of deception. Unlike Jack, he is much more self-absorbed, allowing Wilde to discuss Victorian repression and guilt, which often result in narcissism.
Along with Lady Bracknell, Algy is given witty lines and epigrams showing his humor and disrespect for the society he will inherit. In discussing the music for Lady Bracknell's reception, Algernon says, "Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music, people don't talk." This is Algernon's wit and wisdom contained in a single line. Occasionally, he even congratulates himself on his humor: "It's perfectly phrased!" He poses and moves luxuriously about the stage with the studied languor of the aesthete who has nothing to do but admire his own wittiness. One might certainly see him as a representation of Wilde's cleverness and position in the aesthetic cult of the 1890s.
Parallel to Wilde in deception, Algernon is leading a double life. He uses an imaginary invalid friend, Bunbury, to get out of boring engagements and to provide excitement in the otherwise dull life of Victorian England. As he says, "A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it." This secrecy, of course, was also a facet of Wilde's life, which was unraveling before his Victorian audiences all too quickly by the time the play opened in London. With his irreverent attitudes about marrying and his propensity for a secret life, Algernon represents the rule-breaker side of Oscar Wilde — the side that eventually would meet its downfall in a notorious trial.
Finally, Algernon functions as an expression of the lengths to which Victorians had to go to escape the stifling moral repression and guilt brought about by a society that values appearance over reality. Algernon's constant references to eating and his repeated actions of gorging himself on cucumber sandwiches, muffins, and whatever food might be handy are symbols of total self-absorption, lust, and the physical pleasures denied by polite society. Just as institutions such as the church (Chasuble) and the education system (Prism) function to keep people on the straight and narrow, human nature denies these restrictions and seems to have a will of its own. Algernon symbolizes the wild, unrestricted, curly-headed youngster who is happiest breaking the rules.
Along with Lady Bracknell, Algy is given witty lines and epigrams showing his humor and disrespect for the society he will inherit. In discussing the music for Lady Bracknell's reception, Algernon says, "Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music, people don't talk." This is Algernon's wit and wisdom contained in a single line. Occasionally, he even congratulates himself on his humor: "It's perfectly phrased!" He poses and moves luxuriously about the stage with the studied languor of the aesthete who has nothing to do but admire his own wittiness. One might certainly see him as a representation of Wilde's cleverness and position in the aesthetic cult of the 1890s.
Parallel to Wilde in deception, Algernon is leading a double life. He uses an imaginary invalid friend, Bunbury, to get out of boring engagements and to provide excitement in the otherwise dull life of Victorian England. As he says, "A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it." This secrecy, of course, was also a facet of Wilde's life, which was unraveling before his Victorian audiences all too quickly by the time the play opened in London. With his irreverent attitudes about marrying and his propensity for a secret life, Algernon represents the rule-breaker side of Oscar Wilde — the side that eventually would meet its downfall in a notorious trial.
Finally, Algernon functions as an expression of the lengths to which Victorians had to go to escape the stifling moral repression and guilt brought about by a society that values appearance over reality. Algernon's constant references to eating and his repeated actions of gorging himself on cucumber sandwiches, muffins, and whatever food might be handy are symbols of total self-absorption, lust, and the physical pleasures denied by polite society. Just as institutions such as the church (Chasuble) and the education system (Prism) function to keep people on the straight and narrow, human nature denies these restrictions and seems to have a will of its own. Algernon symbolizes the wild, unrestricted, curly-headed youngster who is happiest breaking the rules.
Character Analysis: John (Jack) Worthing
Jack Worthing, like the other main characters in Wilde's play, is less a realistic character and more an instrument for representing a set of ideas or attitudes. Wilde uses him to represent an upper-class character easily recognized by his audience. Jack also gives Wilde an opportunity to explore attitudes about Victorian rituals such as courtship and marriage. As an alter ego of Wilde, Jack represents the idea of leading a life of respectability on the surface (in the country) and a life of deception for pleasure (in the city). His name, Worthing, is related to worthiness, allowing Wilde to humorously consider the correct manners of Victorian society.
As a recognized upper-class Victorian, Jack has earned respectability only because of his adopted father's fortune. It has put him in a position to know the rules of behavior of polite society. His ability to spout witty lines about trivial subjects and say the opposite of what is known to be true are learned results of his position. When Lady Bracknell questions his qualifications for marrying her daughter, he knows she wants to hear about his pedigree. He recognizes that he needs the correct parents along with his wealth.
Of particular significance is Jack's role in the dialogues about social attitudes and rituals, such as courtship and marriage. He often plays the straight man to counter Algernon's humor, but occasionally, he gets the witty lines. Respectability is also a function of Jack's character. Although he leads a deceptive life in town, he represents the ideal of leading a responsible life in the country. He agrees more with the idea of Victorian earnestness or duty than Algernon does. However, because he deceives people in the city, he is still a symbol of Wilde's deceptive life of pleasure in the homosexual community. Jack longs for the respectability of marrying Gwendolen and is willing to do whatever it takes. In the long run, he assumes his rightful place in the very society he has occasionally skewered for its attitudes. Wilde is able to soften Jack's respectability and position as a symbol of the ruling class by showing his enormous sense of humor. The funeral garb for his fake brother's death and the story about the French maid both show that while Jack longs for respectability, he still has the wit and rebelliousness to recognize the ridiculous nature of trivial Victorian concerns.
As a recognized upper-class Victorian, Jack has earned respectability only because of his adopted father's fortune. It has put him in a position to know the rules of behavior of polite society. His ability to spout witty lines about trivial subjects and say the opposite of what is known to be true are learned results of his position. When Lady Bracknell questions his qualifications for marrying her daughter, he knows she wants to hear about his pedigree. He recognizes that he needs the correct parents along with his wealth.
Of particular significance is Jack's role in the dialogues about social attitudes and rituals, such as courtship and marriage. He often plays the straight man to counter Algernon's humor, but occasionally, he gets the witty lines. Respectability is also a function of Jack's character. Although he leads a deceptive life in town, he represents the ideal of leading a responsible life in the country. He agrees more with the idea of Victorian earnestness or duty than Algernon does. However, because he deceives people in the city, he is still a symbol of Wilde's deceptive life of pleasure in the homosexual community. Jack longs for the respectability of marrying Gwendolen and is willing to do whatever it takes. In the long run, he assumes his rightful place in the very society he has occasionally skewered for its attitudes. Wilde is able to soften Jack's respectability and position as a symbol of the ruling class by showing his enormous sense of humor. The funeral garb for his fake brother's death and the story about the French maid both show that while Jack longs for respectability, he still has the wit and rebelliousness to recognize the ridiculous nature of trivial Victorian concerns.
Character List
John (Jack) Worthing A young, eligible bachelor about town. In the city he goes by the name Ernest, and in the country he is Jack — a local magistrate of the county with responsibilities. His family pedigree is a mystery, but his seriousness and sincerity are evident. He proposes to The Honorable Gwendolen Fairfax and, though leading a double life, eventually demonstrates his conformity to the Victorian moral and social standards.
Algernon Moncrieff A languid poser of the leisure class, bored by conventions and looking for excitement. He, too, leads a double life, being Algernon in the city and Ernest in the country. Algernon, unlike Jack, is not serious and is generally out for his own gratification. He falls in love and proposes to Jack's ward, Cecily, while posing as Jack's wicked younger brother, Ernest.
Lady Bracknell The perfect symbol of Victorian earnestness — the belief that style is more important than substance and that social and class barriers are to be enforced. Lady Bracknell is Algernon's aunt trying to find a suitable wife for him. A strongly opinionated matriarch, dowager, and tyrant, she believes wealth is more important than breeding and bullies everyone in her path. Ironically, she married into the upper class from beneath it. She attempts to bully her daughter, Gwendolen.
The Honorable Gwendolen Fairfax Lady Bracknell's daughter, exhibiting some of the sophistication and confidence of a London socialite, believes style to be important, not sincerity. She is submissive to her mother in public but rebels in private. While demonstrating the absurdity of such ideals as only marrying a man named Ernest, she also agrees to marry Jack despite her mother's disapproval of his origins.
Cecily Cardew Jack Worthing's ward, daughter of his adopted father, Sir Thomas Cardew. She is of debutante age, 18, but she is being tutored at Jack's secluded country estate by Miss Prism, her governess. She is romantic and imaginative, and feeling the repression of Prism's rules. A silly and naïve girl, she declares that she wants to meet a "wicked man." Less sophisticated than Gwendolen, she falls in love with Algernon but feels he would be more stable if named Ernest.
Miss Prism Cecily's governess and a symbol of Victorian moral righteousness. She is educating Cecily to have no imagination or sensationalism in her life. Quoting scripture as a symbol of her Victorian morality, she reveals a secret life of passion by her concern for the whereabouts of her misplaced novel and her flirtation with the local vicar. She becomes the source of Jack's revelation about his parents.
Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. Like Miss Prism, he is the source of Victorian moral judgments, but under the surface he appears to be an old lecher. His sermons are interchangeable, mocking religious conventions. Like the servants, he does what Jack (the landowner) wants: performing weddings, christenings, sermons, funerals, and so on. However, beneath the religious exterior, his heart beats for Miss Prism.
Lane and Merriman Servants of Algernon and Jack. Lane says soothing and comforting things to his employer but stays within the neutral guidelines of a servant. He is leading a double life, eating sandwiches and drinking champagne when his master is not present. He aids and abets the lies of Algernon. Merriman keeps the structure of the plot working: He announces people and happenings. Like Lane, he does not comment on his "betters," but solemnly watches their folly. His neutral facial expressions during crisis and chaos undoubtedly made the upper-class audience laugh.
Algernon Moncrieff A languid poser of the leisure class, bored by conventions and looking for excitement. He, too, leads a double life, being Algernon in the city and Ernest in the country. Algernon, unlike Jack, is not serious and is generally out for his own gratification. He falls in love and proposes to Jack's ward, Cecily, while posing as Jack's wicked younger brother, Ernest.
Lady Bracknell The perfect symbol of Victorian earnestness — the belief that style is more important than substance and that social and class barriers are to be enforced. Lady Bracknell is Algernon's aunt trying to find a suitable wife for him. A strongly opinionated matriarch, dowager, and tyrant, she believes wealth is more important than breeding and bullies everyone in her path. Ironically, she married into the upper class from beneath it. She attempts to bully her daughter, Gwendolen.
The Honorable Gwendolen Fairfax Lady Bracknell's daughter, exhibiting some of the sophistication and confidence of a London socialite, believes style to be important, not sincerity. She is submissive to her mother in public but rebels in private. While demonstrating the absurdity of such ideals as only marrying a man named Ernest, she also agrees to marry Jack despite her mother's disapproval of his origins.
Cecily Cardew Jack Worthing's ward, daughter of his adopted father, Sir Thomas Cardew. She is of debutante age, 18, but she is being tutored at Jack's secluded country estate by Miss Prism, her governess. She is romantic and imaginative, and feeling the repression of Prism's rules. A silly and naïve girl, she declares that she wants to meet a "wicked man." Less sophisticated than Gwendolen, she falls in love with Algernon but feels he would be more stable if named Ernest.
Miss Prism Cecily's governess and a symbol of Victorian moral righteousness. She is educating Cecily to have no imagination or sensationalism in her life. Quoting scripture as a symbol of her Victorian morality, she reveals a secret life of passion by her concern for the whereabouts of her misplaced novel and her flirtation with the local vicar. She becomes the source of Jack's revelation about his parents.
Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. Like Miss Prism, he is the source of Victorian moral judgments, but under the surface he appears to be an old lecher. His sermons are interchangeable, mocking religious conventions. Like the servants, he does what Jack (the landowner) wants: performing weddings, christenings, sermons, funerals, and so on. However, beneath the religious exterior, his heart beats for Miss Prism.
Lane and Merriman Servants of Algernon and Jack. Lane says soothing and comforting things to his employer but stays within the neutral guidelines of a servant. He is leading a double life, eating sandwiches and drinking champagne when his master is not present. He aids and abets the lies of Algernon. Merriman keeps the structure of the plot working: He announces people and happenings. Like Lane, he does not comment on his "betters," but solemnly watches their folly. His neutral facial expressions during crisis and chaos undoubtedly made the upper-class audience laugh.
About The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest opened in the West End of London in February 1894 during an era when many of the religious, social, political, and economic structures were experiencing change — The Victorian Age (the last 25–30 years of the 1800s). The British Empire was at its height and occupied much of the globe, including Ireland, Wilde's homeland. The English aristocracy was dominant, snobbish and rich — far removed from the British middle class and poor.
Many novelists, essayists, poets, philosophers and playwrights of the Victorian Age wrote about social problems, particularly concerning the effects of the Industrial Revolution and political and social reform. Dickens concentrated on the poor, Darwin wrote his theory of evolution describing the survival of the fittest, and Thomas Hardy wrote about the Naturalist Theory of man stuck in the throes of fate. Other notable writers such as Thackeray, the Brontes, Swinburne, Butler, Pinero, and Kipling were also contemporaries of Oscar Wilde. In an age of change, their work, as well as Wilde's plays, encouraged people to think about the artificial barriers that defined society and enabled a privileged life for the rich at the expense of the working class.
American writer, Edith Wharton, was also writing about the lifestyles of the rich during the same period. Her novels, such as Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, or The House of Mirth, explore the concepts of wealth and privilege at the expense of the working class on the American side of the Atlantic.
Although the themes in The Importance of Being Earnest address Victorian social issues, the structure of the play was largely influenced by French theatre, melodrama, social drama, and farce. Wilde was quite familiar with these genres, and borrowed from them freely. A play by W. Lestocq and E.M. Robson, The Foundling, is thought to be a source of Earnest, and it was playing in London at the time Wilde was writing Earnest. The Foundling has an orphan-hero, like Jack Worthing in Wilde's play. A farce is a humorous play using exaggerated physical action, such as slapstick, absurdity, and improbability. It often contains surprises where the unexpected is disclosed. The ending of Earnest, in which Jack misidentifies Prism as his unmarried mother, is typical of the endings of farces. Farces were usually done in three acts and often included changes of identity, stock characters, and lovers misunderstanding each other. Wearing mourning clothes or gobbling food down at times of stress are conventions that can be traced to early farces.
Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen also strongly influenced Wilde. Ibsen's innovations in A Doll's House, which had played in London in 1889, were known to Wilde. Wilde also attended Hedda Gabler and Ghosts, two other plays by Ibsen. While in prison, Wilde requested copies of Ibsen plays.
The theatre manager of the St. James where Earnest opened, George Alexander, asked Wilde to reduce his original four-act play to three acts, like more conventional farces. Wilde accomplished this by omitting the Gribsby episode and merging two acts into one. In doing so, he maneuvered his play for greater commercial and literary response.
Marriage plots and social comedy were also typical of 1890s literature. Jane Austen and George Eliot were both novelists who used the idea of marriage as the basis for their conflicts. Many of the comedies of the stage were social comedies, plays set in contemporary times discussing current problems. The white, Anglo-Saxon, male society of the time provided many targets of complacency and aristocratic attitudes that playwrights such as Wilde could attack.
Earnest came at a time in Wilde's life when he was feeling the pressure of supporting his family and mother, and precariously balancing homosexual affairs — especially with Lord Alfred Douglas. The Importance of Being Earnest opened at George Alexander's St. James Theatre on February 14, 1895. On this particular evening, to honor Wilde's aestheticism, the women wore lily corsages, and the young men wore lilies of the valley in their lapels. Wilde himself, an outside observer by birth in the world of elegant fashion, was festooned in a glittering outfit. It was widely reported that he wore a coat with a black velvet collar, a white waistcoat, a black moiré ribbon watch chain with seals, white gloves, a green scarab ring, and lilies of the valley in his lapel. Wilde, the Irish outsider, was dramatically accepted by upper-class London, who loved his wit and daring, even when laughing about themselves.
The aristocracy attending Wilde's play knew and understood the private lives of characters like Jack and Algernon. They were aware of the culture and atmosphere of the West End. It had clubs, hotels, cafes, restaurants, casinos, and most of the 50 theatres in London. The West End was also a red-light district filled with brothels that could provide any pleasure. It was a virtual garden of delights, and the patrons could understand the need for married men to invent Ernests and Bunburys so that they could frolic in this world.
Many novelists, essayists, poets, philosophers and playwrights of the Victorian Age wrote about social problems, particularly concerning the effects of the Industrial Revolution and political and social reform. Dickens concentrated on the poor, Darwin wrote his theory of evolution describing the survival of the fittest, and Thomas Hardy wrote about the Naturalist Theory of man stuck in the throes of fate. Other notable writers such as Thackeray, the Brontes, Swinburne, Butler, Pinero, and Kipling were also contemporaries of Oscar Wilde. In an age of change, their work, as well as Wilde's plays, encouraged people to think about the artificial barriers that defined society and enabled a privileged life for the rich at the expense of the working class.
American writer, Edith Wharton, was also writing about the lifestyles of the rich during the same period. Her novels, such as Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, or The House of Mirth, explore the concepts of wealth and privilege at the expense of the working class on the American side of the Atlantic.
Although the themes in The Importance of Being Earnest address Victorian social issues, the structure of the play was largely influenced by French theatre, melodrama, social drama, and farce. Wilde was quite familiar with these genres, and borrowed from them freely. A play by W. Lestocq and E.M. Robson, The Foundling, is thought to be a source of Earnest, and it was playing in London at the time Wilde was writing Earnest. The Foundling has an orphan-hero, like Jack Worthing in Wilde's play. A farce is a humorous play using exaggerated physical action, such as slapstick, absurdity, and improbability. It often contains surprises where the unexpected is disclosed. The ending of Earnest, in which Jack misidentifies Prism as his unmarried mother, is typical of the endings of farces. Farces were usually done in three acts and often included changes of identity, stock characters, and lovers misunderstanding each other. Wearing mourning clothes or gobbling food down at times of stress are conventions that can be traced to early farces.
Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen also strongly influenced Wilde. Ibsen's innovations in A Doll's House, which had played in London in 1889, were known to Wilde. Wilde also attended Hedda Gabler and Ghosts, two other plays by Ibsen. While in prison, Wilde requested copies of Ibsen plays.
The theatre manager of the St. James where Earnest opened, George Alexander, asked Wilde to reduce his original four-act play to three acts, like more conventional farces. Wilde accomplished this by omitting the Gribsby episode and merging two acts into one. In doing so, he maneuvered his play for greater commercial and literary response.
Marriage plots and social comedy were also typical of 1890s literature. Jane Austen and George Eliot were both novelists who used the idea of marriage as the basis for their conflicts. Many of the comedies of the stage were social comedies, plays set in contemporary times discussing current problems. The white, Anglo-Saxon, male society of the time provided many targets of complacency and aristocratic attitudes that playwrights such as Wilde could attack.
Earnest came at a time in Wilde's life when he was feeling the pressure of supporting his family and mother, and precariously balancing homosexual affairs — especially with Lord Alfred Douglas. The Importance of Being Earnest opened at George Alexander's St. James Theatre on February 14, 1895. On this particular evening, to honor Wilde's aestheticism, the women wore lily corsages, and the young men wore lilies of the valley in their lapels. Wilde himself, an outside observer by birth in the world of elegant fashion, was festooned in a glittering outfit. It was widely reported that he wore a coat with a black velvet collar, a white waistcoat, a black moiré ribbon watch chain with seals, white gloves, a green scarab ring, and lilies of the valley in his lapel. Wilde, the Irish outsider, was dramatically accepted by upper-class London, who loved his wit and daring, even when laughing about themselves.
The aristocracy attending Wilde's play knew and understood the private lives of characters like Jack and Algernon. They were aware of the culture and atmosphere of the West End. It had clubs, hotels, cafes, restaurants, casinos, and most of the 50 theatres in London. The West End was also a red-light district filled with brothels that could provide any pleasure. It was a virtual garden of delights, and the patrons could understand the need for married men to invent Ernests and Bunburys so that they could frolic in this world.
Oscar Wilde: Last Years
Wilde's last years were spent in several towns in Europe. He settled in the small village of Berneval-sur-Mer near Dieppe, France, and sent letters to newspapers on prison reform while writing his greatest poem, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." His wife Constance had settled in Italy with the boys, changing their name to Holland because of the scandal. Wilde wanted to see her and the children, but she refused because he would not give up Douglas. He and Bosie reunited, and Constance died in April 1898. There was no more writing; Wilde drank heavily and begged money from friends. He and Bosie moved to Naples, Switzerland, and Paris, but Wilde's health was fading. During his time in prison, he had found an admiration for Jesus Christ and had written about his religious convictions. Just prior to his death in Paris on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46, Wilde converted to Roman Catholicism.
Over the last century and a half, many people have believed that Wilde died of cerebral meningitis, complicated by syphilis, and many have seen it as proof of his depravity. However, a November 2000 article in the British journal, Lancet, blames meningoencephalitis, complicated by a chronic right middle-ear disease (see Resource Center for the article). Wilde was treated before and during his imprisonment for a chronic ear infection. Surgery for an acute and life-threatening infection, which had moved into the mastoid, was allegedly performed on October 10, 1900, and was documented in Wilde's letters. He suffered a relapse in November of that year and fell into a coma, never to awaken. His son, Vyvyan, ironically underwent a similar operation for mastoid infection less than two months after his father died.
Wilde's death did not end the public's appreciation of his marvelous wit and staging. The Importance of Being Earnest returned to the West End with revivals in 1902, 1909, 1911, and 1913. The original producer, George Alexander, willed the copyright of the play to Wilde's son, Vyvyan.
After Wilde's death, many friends and acquaintances destroyed his letters for fear that their own reputations would be tainted by his scandal. Even letters to Constance during his imprisonment were destroyed. Most popular and academic writing about Wilde, since his death, has been about the scandal and speculation concerning his private life. His writing was largely ignored or devalued until the 1960s and 1970s. Now Wilde is often classified as a literary figure whose sensibilities, witticisms, and theatrical staging reflected the social commentary of the nineteenth century and influenced the theatre of the twentieth century.
Over the last century and a half, many people have believed that Wilde died of cerebral meningitis, complicated by syphilis, and many have seen it as proof of his depravity. However, a November 2000 article in the British journal, Lancet, blames meningoencephalitis, complicated by a chronic right middle-ear disease (see Resource Center for the article). Wilde was treated before and during his imprisonment for a chronic ear infection. Surgery for an acute and life-threatening infection, which had moved into the mastoid, was allegedly performed on October 10, 1900, and was documented in Wilde's letters. He suffered a relapse in November of that year and fell into a coma, never to awaken. His son, Vyvyan, ironically underwent a similar operation for mastoid infection less than two months after his father died.
Wilde's death did not end the public's appreciation of his marvelous wit and staging. The Importance of Being Earnest returned to the West End with revivals in 1902, 1909, 1911, and 1913. The original producer, George Alexander, willed the copyright of the play to Wilde's son, Vyvyan.
After Wilde's death, many friends and acquaintances destroyed his letters for fear that their own reputations would be tainted by his scandal. Even letters to Constance during his imprisonment were destroyed. Most popular and academic writing about Wilde, since his death, has been about the scandal and speculation concerning his private life. His writing was largely ignored or devalued until the 1960s and 1970s. Now Wilde is often classified as a literary figure whose sensibilities, witticisms, and theatrical staging reflected the social commentary of the nineteenth century and influenced the theatre of the twentieth century.
Oscar Wilde: Disaster and Ruin
Rumors about Wilde's secret life were already circulating in 1895, but he was still very amusing, and as long as his indiscretions were kept quiet, society did not care. The Importance of Being Earnest opened on February 14 at St. James' Theatre, beginning a run of 86 performances to standing ovations. On February 28, the Marquis of Queensberry left a card for Wilde at his club, the Albemarle Club. It read: "To Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite." (Actually, sodomite was misspelled.) Estranged from his father and hating him, Douglas encouraged Wilde to sue the Marquis for libel. Convinced he could triumph in court, Wilde declared to his lawyers that he was innocent and wanted to press the lawsuit. His friends, knowing he had been too indiscreet, urged him to go abroad with his wife until it all blew over, but Wilde intended to carry through with the case. The Marquis hired detectives and, using Alfred Taylor and his young prostitutes, Queensberry effectively put Wilde on trial for homosexuality.
The libel trial was disastrous. When the prosecution threatened to bring in male prostitutes to testify, Wilde dropped the case and left in disgrace. But tragedy was not over for Oscar Wilde. In 1885, Parliament had passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act. It was used to try acts of "gross indecency" between men and sometimes could result in hanging. Being a homosexual was not a crime; the sexual act itself was. When the first trial ended, Queensberry's lawyers sent a transcript of the trial to public prosecutors. Home Secretary Herbert Asquith decided to arrest, imprison, and try Wilde, but he delayed the warrant long enough for Wilde to leave on the last boat-train to France. Wilde, for various reasons, remained in England and was arrested. A new trial would take place, indicting Wilde.
The press had a heyday, viciously attacking Wilde and holding up Queensberry — hardly a model citizen. They pictured Wilde as a deviant but could not print the crime with which he was charged. Unflattering cartoons and caricatures appeared in magazines such as Punch, and Wilde was pictured in unmanly clothes with flowers in his lapel. The court found Wilde guilty and sentenced him to two years at hard labor.
Today, transcripts of the trials can be read in H. Montgomery Hyde's The Trials of Oscar Wilde (The Notable Trials Library by Gryphon Editions, Inc., 1989). Just as Wilde's plays noted the huge gulf between the rich and the working class, the trials themselves displayed the disparity. Lord Alfred Douglas, protected by his powerful family name, was never charged, even though the jury inquired about this because he had committed the same crime. The names of upper-class people associated with the case could not be mentioned in court; in fact, some witnesses were instructed to write a name rather than say it aloud. The names of working class people, however, were readily identified aloud.
The immediate aftermath of the trial was a total disgrace for Wilde. He was abandoned by his friends, his book sales ended, his plays were closed down, and his belongings were sold at auction at low prices. He began his sentence in Newgate Prison but was moved to different prisons over the next two years.
Oscar Wilde was not a man well equipped to face such solitary adversity. His world was normally one of social calendars and lots of people. He was moved to Pentonville Prison where he spent 23 hours a day in poorly ventilated cells and 1 hour exercising without speaking to anyone. His cell was unsanitary, and his bed was nothing more than wooden boards. The food was unspeakable, and he could only read the Bible, a prayer book, and a hymn book. Wilde was not allowed photos of his wife or children or allowed to write or receive more than one letter in three months. In February 1896, his mother dying, Wilde requested leave to go to her. His request was denied; Constance visited the prison on February 19 to tell him in person of his mother's death. It was their last meeting.
By now Wilde had lost 30 pounds, and was not doing well physically or emotionally. He was transferred to Wandsworth Prison. A parliamentary committee looking into prison conditions took up his case and, because he was destitute, transferred him to Reading Gaol — a debtors' prison — for the remainder of his time. While he was there, Wilde wrote a famous letter to Douglas justifying his life and position, which was later published as "De Profundis." When he left this prison on May 19, 1897, he was in decent health and departed immediately for France, never to return to England.
The libel trial was disastrous. When the prosecution threatened to bring in male prostitutes to testify, Wilde dropped the case and left in disgrace. But tragedy was not over for Oscar Wilde. In 1885, Parliament had passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act. It was used to try acts of "gross indecency" between men and sometimes could result in hanging. Being a homosexual was not a crime; the sexual act itself was. When the first trial ended, Queensberry's lawyers sent a transcript of the trial to public prosecutors. Home Secretary Herbert Asquith decided to arrest, imprison, and try Wilde, but he delayed the warrant long enough for Wilde to leave on the last boat-train to France. Wilde, for various reasons, remained in England and was arrested. A new trial would take place, indicting Wilde.
The press had a heyday, viciously attacking Wilde and holding up Queensberry — hardly a model citizen. They pictured Wilde as a deviant but could not print the crime with which he was charged. Unflattering cartoons and caricatures appeared in magazines such as Punch, and Wilde was pictured in unmanly clothes with flowers in his lapel. The court found Wilde guilty and sentenced him to two years at hard labor.
Today, transcripts of the trials can be read in H. Montgomery Hyde's The Trials of Oscar Wilde (The Notable Trials Library by Gryphon Editions, Inc., 1989). Just as Wilde's plays noted the huge gulf between the rich and the working class, the trials themselves displayed the disparity. Lord Alfred Douglas, protected by his powerful family name, was never charged, even though the jury inquired about this because he had committed the same crime. The names of upper-class people associated with the case could not be mentioned in court; in fact, some witnesses were instructed to write a name rather than say it aloud. The names of working class people, however, were readily identified aloud.
The immediate aftermath of the trial was a total disgrace for Wilde. He was abandoned by his friends, his book sales ended, his plays were closed down, and his belongings were sold at auction at low prices. He began his sentence in Newgate Prison but was moved to different prisons over the next two years.
Oscar Wilde was not a man well equipped to face such solitary adversity. His world was normally one of social calendars and lots of people. He was moved to Pentonville Prison where he spent 23 hours a day in poorly ventilated cells and 1 hour exercising without speaking to anyone. His cell was unsanitary, and his bed was nothing more than wooden boards. The food was unspeakable, and he could only read the Bible, a prayer book, and a hymn book. Wilde was not allowed photos of his wife or children or allowed to write or receive more than one letter in three months. In February 1896, his mother dying, Wilde requested leave to go to her. His request was denied; Constance visited the prison on February 19 to tell him in person of his mother's death. It was their last meeting.
By now Wilde had lost 30 pounds, and was not doing well physically or emotionally. He was transferred to Wandsworth Prison. A parliamentary committee looking into prison conditions took up his case and, because he was destitute, transferred him to Reading Gaol — a debtors' prison — for the remainder of his time. While he was there, Wilde wrote a famous letter to Douglas justifying his life and position, which was later published as "De Profundis." When he left this prison on May 19, 1897, he was in decent health and departed immediately for France, never to return to England.
Oscar Wilde: A Playwright with a Secret Life
Within six months of leaving The Woman's World, Wilde had published the commercially successful novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, about a man with a secret life. This novel was quickly followed by Intentions, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, and A House of Pomegranates. In the period from 1891 to 1892, he produced Salome, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and an essay, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism." He amused his audiences, and in return they offered standing ovations at his plays.
One would think all this good luck, publicity, and commercial success would be enough for a respectable married man with two sons, who finally was receiving acceptance from British aristocracy. However, during this amazingly prolific period, Wilde was beginning to frequent literary circles that were often homosexual. In 1886, he is said to have had his first homosexual affair with a Canadian named Robert Ross. He was also introduced to Alfred Taylor, who lived in Bloomsbury and often had male prostitutes at his home. One of these young men was the unemployed Charles Parker. Wilde became involved with several of these young men, who later testified against him at trial.
In 1891, Oscar Wilde met the young man who would change his life forever. Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie) was the 21-year-old son of the Marquis of Queensberry. A very controversial figure, Douglas was often described as femininely beautiful, aristocratic, rich, homosexual, and poetic. His hold on Wilde has often been a subject of conjecture, but most writers believe that Wilde, 14 years Bosie's senior, was infatuated, obsessed, and besotted. By 1892, the two were together constantly. They traveled to France, Italy, and Algiers. Wilde rented homes for them outside London, and when they were apart he wrote letters and was careless with their whereabouts.
Wilde enjoyed unprecedented success in the London theatres from 1893 to 1895. He had two plays running simultaneously in the West End: A Woman of No Importance opened at the Royal Theatre, Haymarket, in January 1893, and Lady Windermere's Fan began in November of that same year. From August through September 1894, he wrote The Importance of Being Earnest at the seaside resort of Worthing, Sussex, his wife and children enjoying the holiday with him. By 1895, he had the acclaim of all London for his witty society plays. However, he was also increasingly indiscreet about his personal life. The year 1895 marked the beginning of the end of his public acceptance and the privacy of his secret life.
One would think all this good luck, publicity, and commercial success would be enough for a respectable married man with two sons, who finally was receiving acceptance from British aristocracy. However, during this amazingly prolific period, Wilde was beginning to frequent literary circles that were often homosexual. In 1886, he is said to have had his first homosexual affair with a Canadian named Robert Ross. He was also introduced to Alfred Taylor, who lived in Bloomsbury and often had male prostitutes at his home. One of these young men was the unemployed Charles Parker. Wilde became involved with several of these young men, who later testified against him at trial.
In 1891, Oscar Wilde met the young man who would change his life forever. Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie) was the 21-year-old son of the Marquis of Queensberry. A very controversial figure, Douglas was often described as femininely beautiful, aristocratic, rich, homosexual, and poetic. His hold on Wilde has often been a subject of conjecture, but most writers believe that Wilde, 14 years Bosie's senior, was infatuated, obsessed, and besotted. By 1892, the two were together constantly. They traveled to France, Italy, and Algiers. Wilde rented homes for them outside London, and when they were apart he wrote letters and was careless with their whereabouts.
Wilde enjoyed unprecedented success in the London theatres from 1893 to 1895. He had two plays running simultaneously in the West End: A Woman of No Importance opened at the Royal Theatre, Haymarket, in January 1893, and Lady Windermere's Fan began in November of that same year. From August through September 1894, he wrote The Importance of Being Earnest at the seaside resort of Worthing, Sussex, his wife and children enjoying the holiday with him. By 1895, he had the acclaim of all London for his witty society plays. However, he was also increasingly indiscreet about his personal life. The year 1895 marked the beginning of the end of his public acceptance and the privacy of his secret life.
Oscar Wilde:Marriage and Commercial Success
During the seven years between his wedding to Constance and his first introduction to a young man who would become part of his downfall — Lord Alfred Douglas — Wilde settled down to a life of domestic respectability as a husband and father. By all accounts the Wildes' marriage was happy, producing two sons: Cyril in June 1885 and Vyvyan in November 1886. Wilde played often with his children and loved them immensely. To support them he wrote book reviews for newspapers and magazines, including the Pall Mall Gazette and the Dramatic Review. Occasionally, he lectured. The Lady's World magazine named him its editor in 1887, and he converted it from a fashion magazine to The Woman's World with essays about women's viewpoints on art, music, literature, and modern life. He wrote essays that took women seriously as creative and intelligent human beings. When he was an editor, Wilde's life was financially more secure. In 1888 he wrote a book of fairy tales titled The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and in 1889 he wrote an essay titled "The Decay of Lying." He left the magazine in July 1889 to begin his greatest period of playwriting.
Oscar Wilde :Education, Travel, and Celebrity
Wilde was given the advantage of a superior education. At age 11, he entered the exclusive Portora Royal School and began to assert the scholarship and intellect that would bring him both great celebrity and great sadness. His long interest in all things Greek began at Portora. Winning several prizes, he was already a first-rate classics scholar and ready to pursue serious studies.
Wilde went on to Trinity College where he extended his interest in the classics and his long list of intellectual accomplishments. He won an additional scholarship, made first class in examinations, received a composition prize for Greek verse, and the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek. In 1874 he received a scholarship to Magdalen College in Oxford. His lifelong love of the classics would continue through his university career and immensely influence his subsequent writing. Little did he know what turns and twists his life would take when he entered Oxford and came under the influence of three very powerful professors.
Wilde's four years at Oxford (1874–1878) were dizzy, personality-changing times. By graduation he was firmly committed to the pursuit of pleasure and the careful devising of a public persona, which included unconventional clothing and the pose of a dandy. Wilde's direction in life changed because of the influence of three professors — Ruskin, Pater, and Mahaffy.
The magnetism of Professor John Ruskin, author of Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, attracted Wilde's imagination. Ruskin believed civilizations could be judged by their art, which must consider and reflect moral values. Ruskin also stirred Wilde's aristocratic soul with social concerns in his insistence that his students identify with the working class and do manual labor. His influence on Wilde's social conscience is undeniable, and it permeates Wilde's plays and his essay, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism." Wilde did not, however, agree with Ruskin on the moral purposes of art. Influenced by Keats and his ideas of truth and beauty, he believed art should be loved and appreciated for its own sake.
Yet another Oxford influence was Professor Walter Pater, author of Studies in the History of the Renaissance and Marius the Epicurian. His prose style influenced young Wilde, and his ideas seemed to fit Wilde's new-found proclivities. Pater emphasized art for art's sake and urged his students to live with passion and for sensual pleasure, testing new ideas and not conforming to the orthodoxy. Pater was planting seeds in fertile ground. The Aesthetic Movement, an avant-garde philosophy of the 1870s, was in full bloom, and its advocates were critical of the heavy, moralistic Victorian taste. They wanted to pursue forms of beauty in opposition to the art and architecture of the day. Wilde could not agree more. He went overboard into aesthetics, adopting extravagant clothing styles, which continued when he left Oxford for London in 1878. He thought of himself as an aesthete, poet, writer, and nonconformist — and he wanted to be famous or at least infamous.
A third influence on Wilde at Oxford was Mahaffy, an Oxford professor of ancient history. Professor Mahaffy took him along on trips to Italy and Greece.
By 1878, when Wilde completed his degree at Oxford, he had won the coveted Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna." Leaving Oxford, Wilde was now ready to take on the world with a classical education and an unequivocal inclination toward the unconventional. Wilde proved to be a master of public relations. Virtually unknown and unpublished, he single-handedly created his own celebrity. While his travels and lectures increased his fame both in England and abroad, his early writings were not critical successes.
London in the 1870s provided Wilde the opportunity to build a public persona and test the limits of what society would tolerate. He dressed in strange clothes and often sported flowers such as lilies and sunflowers. He built a reputation as a minor luminary by courting celebrities. In 1880, he privately printed his first play, Vera, and the following year published his first book of poems. The poems were a modest success, but the play died a quick death.
In April 1881, Gilbert and Sullivan opened a play titled Patience in which a primary character, Bunthorne, was assumed to be based on Wilde. This false assumption was promoted by Wilde through early attendance — in outrageous clothes — at the play. When the play moved on to New York in December 1881, Richard D'Oyly Carte, the producer, hired Wilde to do a series of lectures to introduce the play to American audiences. The press was alerted and ready for his arrival, and Wilde played to them by proclaiming at customs that he had nothing to declare but his genius.
What began as a modest tour ripened into a six-month nationwide tour. He spoke in New York, Chicago, Boston, Fort Wayne (Indiana), Omaha (Nebraska), Philadelphia, and Washington. He even lectured in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where his ability to hold his liquor brought him a silver drill and the good-humored admiration of the miners. America seemed intrigued by Wilde's odd character, and he, in turn, admired many things American, including the democratic insistence on universal education. While in America, Wilde's lectures included "The English Renaissance of Art," "The House Beautiful," and "Decorative Art in America." As a celebrity, he dined with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton (the famous Harvard professor), and Walt Whitman. He also had audiences with Lincoln's son, Robert, and Jefferson Davis.
Following his triumphant tour, Wilde had enough money to spend three months in Paris. There he finished a forgettable play titled The Duchess of Padua. He was befriended once again by celebrities; this time they were Europeans: Zola, Hugo, Verlaine, Gide, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, and Pissarro. Obviously, early training at his mother's salon had paid off.
He returned to London looking for backers to produce his play. In an attempt to garner backing, he cut his hair short and dressed more conservatively. When he was unsuccessful in finding producers, he arranged for a production in New York for $1,000. The play was not successful, closing in less than a week. So, Wilde went back to England, arranging a lecture tour of Great Britain and Ireland, where he encountered a previous acquaintance, Constance Lloyd, who would become his wife — for better or for worse.
Wilde went on to Trinity College where he extended his interest in the classics and his long list of intellectual accomplishments. He won an additional scholarship, made first class in examinations, received a composition prize for Greek verse, and the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek. In 1874 he received a scholarship to Magdalen College in Oxford. His lifelong love of the classics would continue through his university career and immensely influence his subsequent writing. Little did he know what turns and twists his life would take when he entered Oxford and came under the influence of three very powerful professors.
Wilde's four years at Oxford (1874–1878) were dizzy, personality-changing times. By graduation he was firmly committed to the pursuit of pleasure and the careful devising of a public persona, which included unconventional clothing and the pose of a dandy. Wilde's direction in life changed because of the influence of three professors — Ruskin, Pater, and Mahaffy.
The magnetism of Professor John Ruskin, author of Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, attracted Wilde's imagination. Ruskin believed civilizations could be judged by their art, which must consider and reflect moral values. Ruskin also stirred Wilde's aristocratic soul with social concerns in his insistence that his students identify with the working class and do manual labor. His influence on Wilde's social conscience is undeniable, and it permeates Wilde's plays and his essay, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism." Wilde did not, however, agree with Ruskin on the moral purposes of art. Influenced by Keats and his ideas of truth and beauty, he believed art should be loved and appreciated for its own sake.
Yet another Oxford influence was Professor Walter Pater, author of Studies in the History of the Renaissance and Marius the Epicurian. His prose style influenced young Wilde, and his ideas seemed to fit Wilde's new-found proclivities. Pater emphasized art for art's sake and urged his students to live with passion and for sensual pleasure, testing new ideas and not conforming to the orthodoxy. Pater was planting seeds in fertile ground. The Aesthetic Movement, an avant-garde philosophy of the 1870s, was in full bloom, and its advocates were critical of the heavy, moralistic Victorian taste. They wanted to pursue forms of beauty in opposition to the art and architecture of the day. Wilde could not agree more. He went overboard into aesthetics, adopting extravagant clothing styles, which continued when he left Oxford for London in 1878. He thought of himself as an aesthete, poet, writer, and nonconformist — and he wanted to be famous or at least infamous.
A third influence on Wilde at Oxford was Mahaffy, an Oxford professor of ancient history. Professor Mahaffy took him along on trips to Italy and Greece.
By 1878, when Wilde completed his degree at Oxford, he had won the coveted Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna." Leaving Oxford, Wilde was now ready to take on the world with a classical education and an unequivocal inclination toward the unconventional. Wilde proved to be a master of public relations. Virtually unknown and unpublished, he single-handedly created his own celebrity. While his travels and lectures increased his fame both in England and abroad, his early writings were not critical successes.
London in the 1870s provided Wilde the opportunity to build a public persona and test the limits of what society would tolerate. He dressed in strange clothes and often sported flowers such as lilies and sunflowers. He built a reputation as a minor luminary by courting celebrities. In 1880, he privately printed his first play, Vera, and the following year published his first book of poems. The poems were a modest success, but the play died a quick death.
In April 1881, Gilbert and Sullivan opened a play titled Patience in which a primary character, Bunthorne, was assumed to be based on Wilde. This false assumption was promoted by Wilde through early attendance — in outrageous clothes — at the play. When the play moved on to New York in December 1881, Richard D'Oyly Carte, the producer, hired Wilde to do a series of lectures to introduce the play to American audiences. The press was alerted and ready for his arrival, and Wilde played to them by proclaiming at customs that he had nothing to declare but his genius.
What began as a modest tour ripened into a six-month nationwide tour. He spoke in New York, Chicago, Boston, Fort Wayne (Indiana), Omaha (Nebraska), Philadelphia, and Washington. He even lectured in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where his ability to hold his liquor brought him a silver drill and the good-humored admiration of the miners. America seemed intrigued by Wilde's odd character, and he, in turn, admired many things American, including the democratic insistence on universal education. While in America, Wilde's lectures included "The English Renaissance of Art," "The House Beautiful," and "Decorative Art in America." As a celebrity, he dined with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton (the famous Harvard professor), and Walt Whitman. He also had audiences with Lincoln's son, Robert, and Jefferson Davis.
Following his triumphant tour, Wilde had enough money to spend three months in Paris. There he finished a forgettable play titled The Duchess of Padua. He was befriended once again by celebrities; this time they were Europeans: Zola, Hugo, Verlaine, Gide, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, and Pissarro. Obviously, early training at his mother's salon had paid off.
He returned to London looking for backers to produce his play. In an attempt to garner backing, he cut his hair short and dressed more conservatively. When he was unsuccessful in finding producers, he arranged for a production in New York for $1,000. The play was not successful, closing in less than a week. So, Wilde went back to England, arranging a lecture tour of Great Britain and Ireland, where he encountered a previous acquaintance, Constance Lloyd, who would become his wife — for better or for worse.
Oscar Wilde : Early Years
Oscar Wilde's unconventional life began with an equally unconventional family. He was born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde on October 16, 1854, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, Ireland. His father, Sir William Wilde, was an eminent Victorian and a doctor of aural surgery.
Wilde's mother, Jane Francesca Elgee (or Lady Wilde), saw herself as a revolutionary and liked to trace her family through the Italian line of Alighieris, including Dante. An Irish nationalist, she wrote under the pen name Speranza. She attracted artists like herself and established a literary salon devoted to intellectual and artistic conversations of the day, through which Lady Wilde brought literature, an interest in art and culture, and an elegance and appreciation for wit into the lives of her children.
Wilde had two siblings: an older brother named Willie, born in 1852, and a sister, Isola, born in 1856, but who died at the age of 10. These offspring would not experience a standard, conventional childhood. Through their home passed intellectuals, artists, and internationally known doctors — and the children were not left to a governess or nanny. Allowed to mingle and eat with the guests, they learned to value intellectual and witty conversation, an influence that would have profound and long-lasting effects on young Oscar Wilde.
Wilde's mother, Jane Francesca Elgee (or Lady Wilde), saw herself as a revolutionary and liked to trace her family through the Italian line of Alighieris, including Dante. An Irish nationalist, she wrote under the pen name Speranza. She attracted artists like herself and established a literary salon devoted to intellectual and artistic conversations of the day, through which Lady Wilde brought literature, an interest in art and culture, and an elegance and appreciation for wit into the lives of her children.
Wilde had two siblings: an older brother named Willie, born in 1852, and a sister, Isola, born in 1856, but who died at the age of 10. These offspring would not experience a standard, conventional childhood. Through their home passed intellectuals, artists, and internationally known doctors — and the children were not left to a governess or nanny. Allowed to mingle and eat with the guests, they learned to value intellectual and witty conversation, an influence that would have profound and long-lasting effects on young Oscar Wilde.
'The Importance of Being Earnest' Quotes
Oscar Wilde's Famous & Controversial Comedy of Manners
Oscar Wilde created one of the most delightful and memorable social comedies, with The Importance of Being Earnest. It's a comedy of manners that satirizes Victorian manners and customs, but he does it with a light, witty style that's absolutely unforgettable. Here are a few quotes from The Importance of Being Earnest.
• "I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression..."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very attractive."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Gwendolen - Cecily - it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so myself yesterday afternoon."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
Oscar Wilde created one of the most delightful and memorable social comedies, with The Importance of Being Earnest. It's a comedy of manners that satirizes Victorian manners and customs, but he does it with a light, witty style that's absolutely unforgettable. Here are a few quotes from The Importance of Being Earnest.
• "I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression..."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1
• "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very attractive."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Gwendolen - Cecily - it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2
• "Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn very high, just at present."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so myself yesterday afternoon."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
• "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
FROM ELIZABETH GASKELL, THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE ¨ (London, 1857)
I do not know whether Miss Branwell taught her nieces anything besides sewing, and the household arts in which Charlotte afterwards was such an adept. Their regular lessons were said to their father; and they were always in the habit of picking up an immense amount of miscellaneous information for themselves. But a year or so before this time, a school had been begun in the North of England for the daughters of clergymen. The place was Cowan Bridge, a small hamlet on the coach-road between Leeds and Kendal, and thus easy of access from Haworth, as the coach ran daily, and one of its stages was at Keighley. The yearly expense for each pupil (according to the entrance-rules given in the Report for 1842, and I believe they had not been increased since the establishment of the school in 1823) was as follows:—
Rule 1. “The terms for clothing, lodging, boarding, and educating, are £14 a year; half to be paid in advance, when the pupils are sent; and also £1 entrance-money, for the use of books, etc. The system of education comprehends history, geography, the use of the globes, grammar, writing and arithmetic, all kinds of needle-work, and the nicer kinds of household work— such as getting up fine linen, ironing, etc. If accomplishments are required, an additional charge of three pounds a year is made for music or drawing, each.”...
Rule 3rd requests that the friends [those sending the child to school, generally her parents] will state the line of education desired in the case of every pupil, having a regard to her future prospects.
Rule 4th states the clothing and toilette articles which a girl is expected to bring with her; and thus concludes: “The pupils all appear in the same dress. They wear plain straw cottage bonnets; in summer white frocks on Sundays, and nankeen on other days; in winter, purple stuff frocks, and purple cloth cloaks. For the sake of uniformity, therefore, they are required to bring £3 in lieu of frocks, pelisse, bonnet, tippet, and frills; making the whole sum which each pupil brings with her to the school— £7 half-year in advance. £1 entrance for books. £1 entrance for clothes.”
The 8th rule is,—“All letters and parcels are inspected by the superintendent”; but this is a very prevalent regulation in all young ladies’ schools, where I think it is generally understood that the schoolmistress may exercise this privilege, although it is certainly unwise in her to insist too frequently upon it.
There is nothing at all remarkable in any of the other regulations, a copy of which was doubtless in Mr. Bronte ¨ ’s hands when he formed the determination to send his daughters to Cowan Bridge School; and he accordingly took Maria and Elizabeth thither in July 1824.... Miss [Charlotte] Bronte ¨ more than once said to me, that she should not have written what she did of Lowood in Jane Eyre, if she had thought the place would have been so immediately identified with Cowan Bridge, although there was not a word in her account of the institution but what was true at the time when she knew it; she also said that she had not considered it necessary in a work of fiction, to state every particular with the impartiality that might be required in a court of justice, nor to seek out motives, and make allowances for human failings, as she might have done if dispassionately analyzing the conduct of those who had the superintendence of the institution. I believe she herself would have been glad of an opportunity to correct the over-strong impression which was made upon the public mind by her vivid picture, though even she, suffering her whole life long both in heart and body from the consequences of what happened there, might have been apt, to the last, to take her deep belief in facts for the facts themselves— her conception of truth for the absolute truth. In some of the notices of the previous editions of this work, it is assumed that I derived the greater part of my information with regard to her sojourn at Cowan Bridge from Charlotte Bronte ¨ herself. I never heard her speak of the place but once, and that was on the second day of my acquaintance with her. A little child on that occasion expressed some reluctance to finish eating his piece of bread at dinner; and she, stooping down and addressing him in a low voice, told him how thankful she would have been at his age for a piece of bread; and when we— though I am not sure if I myself spoke— asked her some question as to the occasion she alluded to, she replied with reserve and hesitation, evidently shying away from what she imagined might lead to too much conversation on one of her books. She spoke of the oatcake at Cowan Bridge (the clap-bread of Westmoreland) as being different to the leaven-raised oatcake of Yorkshire, and of her childish distaste for it. Someone present made an allusion to a similar childish dislike in the true tale of ‘The terrible knitters o’Dent’ given in Southey’s Common-place Book; and she smiled faintly that the food itself was spoilt by the dirty carelessness of the cook, so that she and her sisters disliked their meals exceedingly; and she named her relief and gladness when the doctor condemned the meat, and spoke of having seen him spit it out. These are all the details I ever heard from her. She so avoided particularizing, that I think Mr. Carus Wilson’s name never passed between us.
I do not doubt the general accuracy of my informants— of those who have given, and solemnly repeated the details that follow— but it is only just to Miss Bronte ¨ to say that I have stated above pretty nearly all that I ever heard on the subject from her. A clergyman living near Kirby Lonsdale, the Reverend William Carus Wilson, was the prime mover in the establishment of this school. He was an energetic man, sparing no labour for the accomplishment of his ends. He saw that it was an extremely difficult task for clergymen with limited incomes to provide for the education of their children; and he devised a scheme, by which a certain sum was raised annually by subscription, to complete the amount required to furnish a solid and sufficient English education, for which the parent’s payment of £14 a year would not have been sufficient. Indeed, that made by the parents was considered to be exclusively appropriated to the expenses of lodging and boarding, and the education provided for by the subscriptions. Twelve trustees were appointed; Mr. Wilson being not only a trustee, but the treasurer and secretary; in fact, taking most of the business arrangements upon himself; a responsibility which appropriately fell to him, as he lived nearer the school than anyone else who was interested in it. So his character for prudence and judgment was to a certain degree implicated in the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and the working of it was for many years the great object and interest of his life. But he was apparently unacquainted with the prime element in good administration— seeking out thoroughly competent persons to fill each department, and then making them responsible for, and judging them by, the result, without perpetual interference with the detail. So great was the amount of good which Mr. Wilson did, by his constant, unwearied superintendence, that I cannot help feeling sorry that, in his old age and declining health, the errors which he was believed to have committed, should have been brought up against him in a form which received such wonderful force from the touch of Miss Bronte ¨ ’s great genius. No doubt whatever can be entertained of the deep interest which he felt in the success of the school. As I write, I have before me his last words on giving up the secretaryship in 1850: he speaks of the “withdrawal, from declining health, of an eye, which, at all events, has loved to watch over the schools with an honest and anxious interest”;—and again he adds, “that he resigns, therefore, with a desire to be thankful for all that God has been pleased to accomplish through his instrumentality (the infirmities and unworthinesses of which he deeply feels and deplores).” Cowan Bridge is a cluster of some six or seven cottages, gathered together at both ends of a bridge, over which the high road from Leeds to Kendal crosses a little stream, called the Leek. This high road is nearly disused now; but formerly, when the buyers from the West Riding manufacturing districts had frequent occasion to go up into the North to purchase the wool of the Westmoreland and Cumberland farmers, it was doubtless much traveled; and perhaps the hamlet of Cowan Bridge had a more prosperous look than it bears at present. It is prettily situated; just where the Leek-fells swoop into the plain; and by the course of the beck alder-trees and willows and hazel bushes grow. The current of the stream is interrupted by broken pieces of grey rock; and the waters flow over a bed of large round white pebbles, which a flood heaves up and moves on either side out of its impetuous way till in some parts they almost form a wall. By the side of the little, shallow, sparkling, vigorous Leek, run long pasture fields, of the fine short grass common in high land; for though Cowan Bridge is situated on a plain, it is a plain from which there is many a fall and long descent before you and the Leek reach the valley of the Lune. I can hardly understand how the schools there came to be so unhealthy; the air all round about was so sweet and thyme-scented, when I visited it last summer. But at this day, every one knows that the site of a building intended for numbers should be chosen with far greater care than that of a private dwelling, from the tendency to illness, both infectious and otherwise, produced by the congregation of people in close proximity. The house is still remaining that formed part of that occupied by the school. It is a long, bow-windowed cottage, now divided into two dwellings. It stands facing the Leek, between which and it intervenes a space, about seventy yards deep, that was once the school garden. This original house was an old dwelling of the Picard family, which they had inhabited for two generations. They sold it for school purposes, and an additional building was erected, running at right angles from the older part. This new part was devoted expressly to school-rooms, dormitories, etc.... The present cottage was, at the time of which I write, occupied by the teacher’s rooms, the dining-room and kitchens, and some smaller bedrooms....The other end forms a cottage, with the low ceilings and stone floors of a hundred years ago; the windows do not open freely and widely; and the passage upstairs, leading to the bedrooms, is narrow and tortuous: altogether, smells would linger about the house, and damp cling to it. But sanitary matters were little understood thirty years ago; and it was a great thing to get a roomy building close to the high road, and not too far from the habitation of Mr. Wilson, the originator of the educational scheme. There was much need of such an institution; numbers of ill-paid clergymen hailed the prospect with joy, and eagerly put down the names of their children as pupils when the establishment should be ready to receive them. Mr. Wilson was, no doubt, pleased by the impatience with which the realization of his idea was anticipated, and opened the school with less than a hundred pounds in hand, and with pupils, the number of whom varies according to different accounts: Mr. W. W. Carus Wilson, the son of the founder, giving it as seventy; while Mr. Shepheard, the son-in-law, states it to have been only sixteen. Mr. Wilson felt, most probably, that the responsibility of the whole plan rested upon him. The payment made by the parents was barely enough for food and lodging; the subscriptions did not flow very freely into an untried scheme; and great economy was necessary in all the domestic arrangements. He determined to enforce this by frequent personal inspection, carried perhaps to an unnecessary extent, and leading occasionally to a meddling with little matters, which had sometimes had the effect of producing irritation of feeling. Yet, although there was economy in providing for the household, there does not appear to have been any parsimony. The meat, flour, milk, etc., were contracted for, but were of very fair quality; and the dietary, which has been shown to me in manuscript, was neither bad nor unwholesome; nor, on the whole, was it wanting in variety. Oatmeal porridge for breakfast; a piece of oatcake for those who required luncheon; baked and boiled beef, and mutton, potato-pie, and plain homely puddings of different kinds for dinner. At five o’clock, bread and milk for the younger ones; and one piece of bread (this was the only time at which the food was limited) for the elder pupils, who sat up till a later meal of the same description. Mr. Wilson himself ordered in the food, and was anxious that it should be of good quality. But the cook, who had much of his confidence, and against whom for a long time no one durst utter a complaint, was careless, dirty, and wasteful. To some children oatmeal porridge is distasteful, and consequently unwholesome, even when properly made; at Cowen Bridge School it was too often sent up, not merely burnt, but with offensive fragments of other substances discoverable in it. The beef, that should have been carefully salted before it was dressed, had often become tainted from neglect; and girls, who were schoolfellows with the Bronte ¨ s, during the reign of the cook of whom I am speaking, tell me that the house seemed to be pervaded, morning, noon, and night, by the odour of rancid fat that steamed out of the oven in which much of their food was prepared. There was the same carelessness in making the puddings; one of those ordered was rice boiled in water, and eaten with a sauce of treacle and sugar; but it was often uneatable, because the water had been taken out of the rain tub, and was strongly impregnated with the dust lodging on the roof, whence it had trickled down into the old wooden cask, which also added its own flavour to that of the original rain water. The milk, too, was often ‘bingy,’ to use a country expression for a kind of taint that is far worse than sourness, and suggests the idea that it is caused by want of cleanliness about the milk pans, rather than by the heat of the weather. On Saturdays a kind of pie, or mixture of potatoes and meat, was served up, which was made of all the fragments accumulated during the week. Scraps of meat from a dirty and disorderly larder could never be very appetizing; and I believe that this dinner was more loathed than any in the early days of Cowan Bridge School. One may fancy how repulsive such fare would be to children whose appetites were small, and who had been accustomed to food, far simpler perhaps, but prepared with a delicate cleanliness that made it both tempting and wholesome. At many a meal the little Bronte ¨ s went without food, although craving with hunger. They were not strong when they came, having only just recovered from a complication of measles and whoopingcough— indeed, I suspect they had scarcely recovered, for there was some consultation on the part of the school authorities whether Maria and Elizabeth should be received or not, in July 1824. Mr. Bronte ¨ came again, in the September of that year, bringing with him Charlotte and Emily to be admitted as pupils. It appears strange that Mr. Wilson should not have been informed by the teachers of the way in which the food was served up; but we must remember that the cook had been known for some time to the Wilson family, while the teachers were brought together for an entirely different work— that of education. They were expressly given to understand that such was their department; the buying in and management of the provisions rested with Mr. Wilson and the cook. The teachers would, of course, be unwilling to lay any complaints on the subject before him. There was another trial of health common to all the girls. The path from Cowan Bridge to Tunstall Church, where Mr. Wilson preached, and where they all attended on the Sunday, is more than two miles in length, and goes sweeping along the rise and fall of the unsheltered country in a way to make it a fresh and exhilarating walk in summer, but a bitter cold one in winter, especially to children like the delicate little Bronte ¨ s, whose thin blood flowed languidly in consequence of their feeble appetites rejecting the food prepared for them, and thus inducing a halfstarved condition. The church was not warmed, there being no means for this purpose. It stands in the midst of fields, and the damp mist must have gathered round the walls, and crept in at the windows. The girls took their cold dinner with them, and ate it between the services, in a chamber over the entrance, opening out of the former galleries. The arrangements for this day were peculiarly trying to delicate children, particularly to those who were spiritless and longing for home, as poor Maria Bronte ¨ must have been; for her ill health was increasing, and the old cough, the remains of the whooping-cough, lingered about her. She was far superior in mind to any of her playfellows and companions, and was lonely amongst them from that very cause; and yet she had faults so annoying that she was in constant disgrace with her teachers, and an object of merciless dislike to one of them, who is depicted as “Miss Scatcherd” in Jane Eyre, and whose real name I will be merciful enough not to disclose. I need hardly say that Helen Burns is as exact a transcript of Maria Bronte ¨ as Charlotte’s wonderful power of reproducing character could give. Her heart, to the latest day on which we met, still beat with unavailing indignation at the worrying and the cruelty to which her gentle, patient, dying sister had been subjected by this woman. Not a word of that part of Jane Eyre but is a literal repetition of scenes between the pupil and the teacher. Those who had been pupils at the same time knew who must have written the book from the force with which Helen Burns’s sufferings are described. They had, before that, recognized the description of the sweet dignity and benevolence of Miss Temple as only a just tribute to the merits of one whom all that knew her appear to hold in honour; but when Miss Scatcherd was held up to opprobrium they also recognized in the writer of Jane Eyre an unconsciously avenging sister of the sufferer. One of their fellow-pupils, among other statements even worse, gives me the following:—the dormitory in which Maria slept was a long room, holding a row of narrow little beds on each side, occupied by the pupils; and at the end of this dormitory there was a small bedchamber opening out of it, appropriated to the use of Miss Scatcherd. Maria’s bed stood nearest to the door of this room. One morning, after she had become so seriously unwell as to have had a blister applied to her side (the sore from which was not perfectly healed), when the getting-up bell was heard poor Maria moaned out that she was so ill, so very ill, she wished she might stop in bed; and some of the girls urged her to do so, and said they would explain it all to Miss Temple, the superintendent. But Miss Scatcherd was close at hand and would have to be faced before Miss Temple’s kind thoughtfulness could interfere; so the sick child began to dress, shivering with cold, as, without leaving her bed, she slowly put on her black worsted stockings over her thin white legs (my informant spoke as if she saw it yet, and her whole face flushed out undying indignation). Just then Miss Scatcherd issued from her room, and, without asking for a word of explanation from the sick and frightened girl, she took her by the arm, on the side to which the blister had been applied, and by one vigorous movement whirled her out into the middle of the floor, abusing her all the time for dirty and untidy habits. There she left her. My informant says Maria hardly spoke, except to beg some of the more indignant girls to be calm; but, in slow, trembling movements, with many a pause, she went downstairs at last— and was punished for being late. Anyone may fancy how such an event as this would rankle in Charlotte’s mind. I only wonder that she did not remonstrate against her father’s decision to send her and Emily back to Cowan Bridge, after Maria’s and Elizabeth’s deaths. But frequently children are unconscious of the effect which some of their simple revelations would have in altering the opinions entertained by their friends of the persons placed around them. Besides, Charlotte’s earnest vigorous mind saw, at an unusually early age, the immense importance of education, as furnishing her with tools which she had the strength and the will to wield, and she would be aware that the Cowan Bridge education was, in many points, the best that her father could provide for her.
Before Maria Bronte ¨ ’s death, that low fever broke out in the spring of 1825, which is spoken of in Jane Eyre. Mr. Wilson was extremely alarmed at the first symptoms of this. He went to a kind, motherly woman, who had had some connection with the school— as laundress, I believe— and asked her to come and tell him what was the matter with them. She made herself ready, and drove with him in his gig. When she entered the school-room, she saw from twelve to fifteen girls lying about; some resting their aching heads on the table, others on the ground; all heavy-eyed, flushed, indifferent, and weary, with pains in every limb. Some peculiar odour, she says, made her recognize that they were sickening from “the fever”; and she told Mr. Wilson so, and that she could not stay there for fear of conveying the infection to her own children; but he half commanded and half entreated her to remain and nurse them, and finally mounted his gig and drove away, while she was still urging that she must return to her own house, and to her domestic duties, for which she had provided no substitute. However, when she was left in this unceremonious manner, she determined to make the best of it; and a most efficient nurse she proved, although, as she says, it was a dreary time. Mr. Wilson supplied everything ordered by the doctors, of the best quality in the most liberal manner; the invalids were attended by Dr. Batty, a very clever surgeon in Kirby, who had had the medical superintendence of the establishment from the beginning, and who afterwards became Mr. Wilson’s brother-in-law. I have heard from two witnesses besides Charlotte Bronte ¨ , that Dr. Batty condemned the preparation of the food by the expressive action of spitting out a portion of it. He himself, it is but fair to say, does not remember this circumstance, nor does he speak of the fever itself as either alarming or dangerous. About forty of the girls suffered from this, but none of them died at Cowan Bridge, though one died at her own home, sinking under the state of health which followed it. None of the Bronte ¨ s had the fever. But the same causes, which affected the health of the other pupils through typhus, told more slowly, but not less surely, upon their constitutions. The principal of these causes was the food.
The bad management of the cook was chiefly to be blamed for this; she was dismissed, and the woman who had been forced against her will to serve as head nurse, took the place of housekeeper; and henceforward the food was so well prepared that no one could ever reasonably complain of it.... All this occurred during the first two years of the establishment, and in estimating its effect upon the character of Charlotte Bronte ¨ , we must remember that she was a sensitive, thoughtful child, capable of reflecting deeply, if not of analyzing truly; and peculiarly susceptible, as are all delicate and sickly children, to painful impressions. What the healthy suffer from but momentarily and then forget, those who are ailing brood over involuntarily and remember long,—perhaps with no resentment, but simply as a piece of suffering that has been stamped into their very life. The pictures, ideas, and conceptions of character received into the mind of the child of eight years old were destined to be reproduced in fiery words a quarter of a century afterwards. She saw but one side of Mr Wilson’s character; and many of those who knew him at that time assure me of the fidelity with which this is represented, while at the same time they regret that the delineation should have obliterated, as it were, nearly all that was noble or conscientious.... In the spring of [1825] Maria became so rapidly worse that Mr. Bronte ¨ was sent for. He had not previously been aware of her illness, and the condition in which he found her was a terrible shock to him. He took her home by the Leeds coach, the girls crowding out into the road to follow her with their eyes over the bridge, past the cottages, and then out of sight for ever. She died a very few days after her arrival at home. Perhaps the news of her death falling suddenly into the life of which her patient existence had formed a part, only a week or so before, made those who remained at Cowan Bridge look with more anxiety on Elizabeth’s symptoms, which also turned out to be consumptive. She was sent home in charge of a confidential servant of the establishment; and she, too, died in the early summer of that year. Charlotte was thus suddenly called into the responsibilities of eldest sister in a motherless family. She remembered how anxiously her dear sister Maria had striven, in her grave, earnest way, to be a tender helper and a counselor to them all; and the duties that now fell upon her seemed almost like a legacy from the gentle little sufferer so lately dead. Both Charlotte and Emily returned to school after the Midsummer holidays in this fatal year. But before the next winter it was thought desirable to advise their removal, as it was evident that the damp situation of the house at Cowen Bridge did not suit their health.” (47– 61)
Teachman, Debra. Understanding Jane Eyre : A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources & Historical Documents.
Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2001. p 55.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/kdupg/Doc?id=10005612&ppg=73
Copyright © 2001. Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Rule 1. “The terms for clothing, lodging, boarding, and educating, are £14 a year; half to be paid in advance, when the pupils are sent; and also £1 entrance-money, for the use of books, etc. The system of education comprehends history, geography, the use of the globes, grammar, writing and arithmetic, all kinds of needle-work, and the nicer kinds of household work— such as getting up fine linen, ironing, etc. If accomplishments are required, an additional charge of three pounds a year is made for music or drawing, each.”...
Rule 3rd requests that the friends [those sending the child to school, generally her parents] will state the line of education desired in the case of every pupil, having a regard to her future prospects.
Rule 4th states the clothing and toilette articles which a girl is expected to bring with her; and thus concludes: “The pupils all appear in the same dress. They wear plain straw cottage bonnets; in summer white frocks on Sundays, and nankeen on other days; in winter, purple stuff frocks, and purple cloth cloaks. For the sake of uniformity, therefore, they are required to bring £3 in lieu of frocks, pelisse, bonnet, tippet, and frills; making the whole sum which each pupil brings with her to the school— £7 half-year in advance. £1 entrance for books. £1 entrance for clothes.”
The 8th rule is,—“All letters and parcels are inspected by the superintendent”; but this is a very prevalent regulation in all young ladies’ schools, where I think it is generally understood that the schoolmistress may exercise this privilege, although it is certainly unwise in her to insist too frequently upon it.
There is nothing at all remarkable in any of the other regulations, a copy of which was doubtless in Mr. Bronte ¨ ’s hands when he formed the determination to send his daughters to Cowan Bridge School; and he accordingly took Maria and Elizabeth thither in July 1824.... Miss [Charlotte] Bronte ¨ more than once said to me, that she should not have written what she did of Lowood in Jane Eyre, if she had thought the place would have been so immediately identified with Cowan Bridge, although there was not a word in her account of the institution but what was true at the time when she knew it; she also said that she had not considered it necessary in a work of fiction, to state every particular with the impartiality that might be required in a court of justice, nor to seek out motives, and make allowances for human failings, as she might have done if dispassionately analyzing the conduct of those who had the superintendence of the institution. I believe she herself would have been glad of an opportunity to correct the over-strong impression which was made upon the public mind by her vivid picture, though even she, suffering her whole life long both in heart and body from the consequences of what happened there, might have been apt, to the last, to take her deep belief in facts for the facts themselves— her conception of truth for the absolute truth. In some of the notices of the previous editions of this work, it is assumed that I derived the greater part of my information with regard to her sojourn at Cowan Bridge from Charlotte Bronte ¨ herself. I never heard her speak of the place but once, and that was on the second day of my acquaintance with her. A little child on that occasion expressed some reluctance to finish eating his piece of bread at dinner; and she, stooping down and addressing him in a low voice, told him how thankful she would have been at his age for a piece of bread; and when we— though I am not sure if I myself spoke— asked her some question as to the occasion she alluded to, she replied with reserve and hesitation, evidently shying away from what she imagined might lead to too much conversation on one of her books. She spoke of the oatcake at Cowan Bridge (the clap-bread of Westmoreland) as being different to the leaven-raised oatcake of Yorkshire, and of her childish distaste for it. Someone present made an allusion to a similar childish dislike in the true tale of ‘The terrible knitters o’Dent’ given in Southey’s Common-place Book; and she smiled faintly that the food itself was spoilt by the dirty carelessness of the cook, so that she and her sisters disliked their meals exceedingly; and she named her relief and gladness when the doctor condemned the meat, and spoke of having seen him spit it out. These are all the details I ever heard from her. She so avoided particularizing, that I think Mr. Carus Wilson’s name never passed between us.
I do not doubt the general accuracy of my informants— of those who have given, and solemnly repeated the details that follow— but it is only just to Miss Bronte ¨ to say that I have stated above pretty nearly all that I ever heard on the subject from her. A clergyman living near Kirby Lonsdale, the Reverend William Carus Wilson, was the prime mover in the establishment of this school. He was an energetic man, sparing no labour for the accomplishment of his ends. He saw that it was an extremely difficult task for clergymen with limited incomes to provide for the education of their children; and he devised a scheme, by which a certain sum was raised annually by subscription, to complete the amount required to furnish a solid and sufficient English education, for which the parent’s payment of £14 a year would not have been sufficient. Indeed, that made by the parents was considered to be exclusively appropriated to the expenses of lodging and boarding, and the education provided for by the subscriptions. Twelve trustees were appointed; Mr. Wilson being not only a trustee, but the treasurer and secretary; in fact, taking most of the business arrangements upon himself; a responsibility which appropriately fell to him, as he lived nearer the school than anyone else who was interested in it. So his character for prudence and judgment was to a certain degree implicated in the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and the working of it was for many years the great object and interest of his life. But he was apparently unacquainted with the prime element in good administration— seeking out thoroughly competent persons to fill each department, and then making them responsible for, and judging them by, the result, without perpetual interference with the detail. So great was the amount of good which Mr. Wilson did, by his constant, unwearied superintendence, that I cannot help feeling sorry that, in his old age and declining health, the errors which he was believed to have committed, should have been brought up against him in a form which received such wonderful force from the touch of Miss Bronte ¨ ’s great genius. No doubt whatever can be entertained of the deep interest which he felt in the success of the school. As I write, I have before me his last words on giving up the secretaryship in 1850: he speaks of the “withdrawal, from declining health, of an eye, which, at all events, has loved to watch over the schools with an honest and anxious interest”;—and again he adds, “that he resigns, therefore, with a desire to be thankful for all that God has been pleased to accomplish through his instrumentality (the infirmities and unworthinesses of which he deeply feels and deplores).” Cowan Bridge is a cluster of some six or seven cottages, gathered together at both ends of a bridge, over which the high road from Leeds to Kendal crosses a little stream, called the Leek. This high road is nearly disused now; but formerly, when the buyers from the West Riding manufacturing districts had frequent occasion to go up into the North to purchase the wool of the Westmoreland and Cumberland farmers, it was doubtless much traveled; and perhaps the hamlet of Cowan Bridge had a more prosperous look than it bears at present. It is prettily situated; just where the Leek-fells swoop into the plain; and by the course of the beck alder-trees and willows and hazel bushes grow. The current of the stream is interrupted by broken pieces of grey rock; and the waters flow over a bed of large round white pebbles, which a flood heaves up and moves on either side out of its impetuous way till in some parts they almost form a wall. By the side of the little, shallow, sparkling, vigorous Leek, run long pasture fields, of the fine short grass common in high land; for though Cowan Bridge is situated on a plain, it is a plain from which there is many a fall and long descent before you and the Leek reach the valley of the Lune. I can hardly understand how the schools there came to be so unhealthy; the air all round about was so sweet and thyme-scented, when I visited it last summer. But at this day, every one knows that the site of a building intended for numbers should be chosen with far greater care than that of a private dwelling, from the tendency to illness, both infectious and otherwise, produced by the congregation of people in close proximity. The house is still remaining that formed part of that occupied by the school. It is a long, bow-windowed cottage, now divided into two dwellings. It stands facing the Leek, between which and it intervenes a space, about seventy yards deep, that was once the school garden. This original house was an old dwelling of the Picard family, which they had inhabited for two generations. They sold it for school purposes, and an additional building was erected, running at right angles from the older part. This new part was devoted expressly to school-rooms, dormitories, etc.... The present cottage was, at the time of which I write, occupied by the teacher’s rooms, the dining-room and kitchens, and some smaller bedrooms....The other end forms a cottage, with the low ceilings and stone floors of a hundred years ago; the windows do not open freely and widely; and the passage upstairs, leading to the bedrooms, is narrow and tortuous: altogether, smells would linger about the house, and damp cling to it. But sanitary matters were little understood thirty years ago; and it was a great thing to get a roomy building close to the high road, and not too far from the habitation of Mr. Wilson, the originator of the educational scheme. There was much need of such an institution; numbers of ill-paid clergymen hailed the prospect with joy, and eagerly put down the names of their children as pupils when the establishment should be ready to receive them. Mr. Wilson was, no doubt, pleased by the impatience with which the realization of his idea was anticipated, and opened the school with less than a hundred pounds in hand, and with pupils, the number of whom varies according to different accounts: Mr. W. W. Carus Wilson, the son of the founder, giving it as seventy; while Mr. Shepheard, the son-in-law, states it to have been only sixteen. Mr. Wilson felt, most probably, that the responsibility of the whole plan rested upon him. The payment made by the parents was barely enough for food and lodging; the subscriptions did not flow very freely into an untried scheme; and great economy was necessary in all the domestic arrangements. He determined to enforce this by frequent personal inspection, carried perhaps to an unnecessary extent, and leading occasionally to a meddling with little matters, which had sometimes had the effect of producing irritation of feeling. Yet, although there was economy in providing for the household, there does not appear to have been any parsimony. The meat, flour, milk, etc., were contracted for, but were of very fair quality; and the dietary, which has been shown to me in manuscript, was neither bad nor unwholesome; nor, on the whole, was it wanting in variety. Oatmeal porridge for breakfast; a piece of oatcake for those who required luncheon; baked and boiled beef, and mutton, potato-pie, and plain homely puddings of different kinds for dinner. At five o’clock, bread and milk for the younger ones; and one piece of bread (this was the only time at which the food was limited) for the elder pupils, who sat up till a later meal of the same description. Mr. Wilson himself ordered in the food, and was anxious that it should be of good quality. But the cook, who had much of his confidence, and against whom for a long time no one durst utter a complaint, was careless, dirty, and wasteful. To some children oatmeal porridge is distasteful, and consequently unwholesome, even when properly made; at Cowen Bridge School it was too often sent up, not merely burnt, but with offensive fragments of other substances discoverable in it. The beef, that should have been carefully salted before it was dressed, had often become tainted from neglect; and girls, who were schoolfellows with the Bronte ¨ s, during the reign of the cook of whom I am speaking, tell me that the house seemed to be pervaded, morning, noon, and night, by the odour of rancid fat that steamed out of the oven in which much of their food was prepared. There was the same carelessness in making the puddings; one of those ordered was rice boiled in water, and eaten with a sauce of treacle and sugar; but it was often uneatable, because the water had been taken out of the rain tub, and was strongly impregnated with the dust lodging on the roof, whence it had trickled down into the old wooden cask, which also added its own flavour to that of the original rain water. The milk, too, was often ‘bingy,’ to use a country expression for a kind of taint that is far worse than sourness, and suggests the idea that it is caused by want of cleanliness about the milk pans, rather than by the heat of the weather. On Saturdays a kind of pie, or mixture of potatoes and meat, was served up, which was made of all the fragments accumulated during the week. Scraps of meat from a dirty and disorderly larder could never be very appetizing; and I believe that this dinner was more loathed than any in the early days of Cowan Bridge School. One may fancy how repulsive such fare would be to children whose appetites were small, and who had been accustomed to food, far simpler perhaps, but prepared with a delicate cleanliness that made it both tempting and wholesome. At many a meal the little Bronte ¨ s went without food, although craving with hunger. They were not strong when they came, having only just recovered from a complication of measles and whoopingcough— indeed, I suspect they had scarcely recovered, for there was some consultation on the part of the school authorities whether Maria and Elizabeth should be received or not, in July 1824. Mr. Bronte ¨ came again, in the September of that year, bringing with him Charlotte and Emily to be admitted as pupils. It appears strange that Mr. Wilson should not have been informed by the teachers of the way in which the food was served up; but we must remember that the cook had been known for some time to the Wilson family, while the teachers were brought together for an entirely different work— that of education. They were expressly given to understand that such was their department; the buying in and management of the provisions rested with Mr. Wilson and the cook. The teachers would, of course, be unwilling to lay any complaints on the subject before him. There was another trial of health common to all the girls. The path from Cowan Bridge to Tunstall Church, where Mr. Wilson preached, and where they all attended on the Sunday, is more than two miles in length, and goes sweeping along the rise and fall of the unsheltered country in a way to make it a fresh and exhilarating walk in summer, but a bitter cold one in winter, especially to children like the delicate little Bronte ¨ s, whose thin blood flowed languidly in consequence of their feeble appetites rejecting the food prepared for them, and thus inducing a halfstarved condition. The church was not warmed, there being no means for this purpose. It stands in the midst of fields, and the damp mist must have gathered round the walls, and crept in at the windows. The girls took their cold dinner with them, and ate it between the services, in a chamber over the entrance, opening out of the former galleries. The arrangements for this day were peculiarly trying to delicate children, particularly to those who were spiritless and longing for home, as poor Maria Bronte ¨ must have been; for her ill health was increasing, and the old cough, the remains of the whooping-cough, lingered about her. She was far superior in mind to any of her playfellows and companions, and was lonely amongst them from that very cause; and yet she had faults so annoying that she was in constant disgrace with her teachers, and an object of merciless dislike to one of them, who is depicted as “Miss Scatcherd” in Jane Eyre, and whose real name I will be merciful enough not to disclose. I need hardly say that Helen Burns is as exact a transcript of Maria Bronte ¨ as Charlotte’s wonderful power of reproducing character could give. Her heart, to the latest day on which we met, still beat with unavailing indignation at the worrying and the cruelty to which her gentle, patient, dying sister had been subjected by this woman. Not a word of that part of Jane Eyre but is a literal repetition of scenes between the pupil and the teacher. Those who had been pupils at the same time knew who must have written the book from the force with which Helen Burns’s sufferings are described. They had, before that, recognized the description of the sweet dignity and benevolence of Miss Temple as only a just tribute to the merits of one whom all that knew her appear to hold in honour; but when Miss Scatcherd was held up to opprobrium they also recognized in the writer of Jane Eyre an unconsciously avenging sister of the sufferer. One of their fellow-pupils, among other statements even worse, gives me the following:—the dormitory in which Maria slept was a long room, holding a row of narrow little beds on each side, occupied by the pupils; and at the end of this dormitory there was a small bedchamber opening out of it, appropriated to the use of Miss Scatcherd. Maria’s bed stood nearest to the door of this room. One morning, after she had become so seriously unwell as to have had a blister applied to her side (the sore from which was not perfectly healed), when the getting-up bell was heard poor Maria moaned out that she was so ill, so very ill, she wished she might stop in bed; and some of the girls urged her to do so, and said they would explain it all to Miss Temple, the superintendent. But Miss Scatcherd was close at hand and would have to be faced before Miss Temple’s kind thoughtfulness could interfere; so the sick child began to dress, shivering with cold, as, without leaving her bed, she slowly put on her black worsted stockings over her thin white legs (my informant spoke as if she saw it yet, and her whole face flushed out undying indignation). Just then Miss Scatcherd issued from her room, and, without asking for a word of explanation from the sick and frightened girl, she took her by the arm, on the side to which the blister had been applied, and by one vigorous movement whirled her out into the middle of the floor, abusing her all the time for dirty and untidy habits. There she left her. My informant says Maria hardly spoke, except to beg some of the more indignant girls to be calm; but, in slow, trembling movements, with many a pause, she went downstairs at last— and was punished for being late. Anyone may fancy how such an event as this would rankle in Charlotte’s mind. I only wonder that she did not remonstrate against her father’s decision to send her and Emily back to Cowan Bridge, after Maria’s and Elizabeth’s deaths. But frequently children are unconscious of the effect which some of their simple revelations would have in altering the opinions entertained by their friends of the persons placed around them. Besides, Charlotte’s earnest vigorous mind saw, at an unusually early age, the immense importance of education, as furnishing her with tools which she had the strength and the will to wield, and she would be aware that the Cowan Bridge education was, in many points, the best that her father could provide for her.
Before Maria Bronte ¨ ’s death, that low fever broke out in the spring of 1825, which is spoken of in Jane Eyre. Mr. Wilson was extremely alarmed at the first symptoms of this. He went to a kind, motherly woman, who had had some connection with the school— as laundress, I believe— and asked her to come and tell him what was the matter with them. She made herself ready, and drove with him in his gig. When she entered the school-room, she saw from twelve to fifteen girls lying about; some resting their aching heads on the table, others on the ground; all heavy-eyed, flushed, indifferent, and weary, with pains in every limb. Some peculiar odour, she says, made her recognize that they were sickening from “the fever”; and she told Mr. Wilson so, and that she could not stay there for fear of conveying the infection to her own children; but he half commanded and half entreated her to remain and nurse them, and finally mounted his gig and drove away, while she was still urging that she must return to her own house, and to her domestic duties, for which she had provided no substitute. However, when she was left in this unceremonious manner, she determined to make the best of it; and a most efficient nurse she proved, although, as she says, it was a dreary time. Mr. Wilson supplied everything ordered by the doctors, of the best quality in the most liberal manner; the invalids were attended by Dr. Batty, a very clever surgeon in Kirby, who had had the medical superintendence of the establishment from the beginning, and who afterwards became Mr. Wilson’s brother-in-law. I have heard from two witnesses besides Charlotte Bronte ¨ , that Dr. Batty condemned the preparation of the food by the expressive action of spitting out a portion of it. He himself, it is but fair to say, does not remember this circumstance, nor does he speak of the fever itself as either alarming or dangerous. About forty of the girls suffered from this, but none of them died at Cowan Bridge, though one died at her own home, sinking under the state of health which followed it. None of the Bronte ¨ s had the fever. But the same causes, which affected the health of the other pupils through typhus, told more slowly, but not less surely, upon their constitutions. The principal of these causes was the food.
The bad management of the cook was chiefly to be blamed for this; she was dismissed, and the woman who had been forced against her will to serve as head nurse, took the place of housekeeper; and henceforward the food was so well prepared that no one could ever reasonably complain of it.... All this occurred during the first two years of the establishment, and in estimating its effect upon the character of Charlotte Bronte ¨ , we must remember that she was a sensitive, thoughtful child, capable of reflecting deeply, if not of analyzing truly; and peculiarly susceptible, as are all delicate and sickly children, to painful impressions. What the healthy suffer from but momentarily and then forget, those who are ailing brood over involuntarily and remember long,—perhaps with no resentment, but simply as a piece of suffering that has been stamped into their very life. The pictures, ideas, and conceptions of character received into the mind of the child of eight years old were destined to be reproduced in fiery words a quarter of a century afterwards. She saw but one side of Mr Wilson’s character; and many of those who knew him at that time assure me of the fidelity with which this is represented, while at the same time they regret that the delineation should have obliterated, as it were, nearly all that was noble or conscientious.... In the spring of [1825] Maria became so rapidly worse that Mr. Bronte ¨ was sent for. He had not previously been aware of her illness, and the condition in which he found her was a terrible shock to him. He took her home by the Leeds coach, the girls crowding out into the road to follow her with their eyes over the bridge, past the cottages, and then out of sight for ever. She died a very few days after her arrival at home. Perhaps the news of her death falling suddenly into the life of which her patient existence had formed a part, only a week or so before, made those who remained at Cowan Bridge look with more anxiety on Elizabeth’s symptoms, which also turned out to be consumptive. She was sent home in charge of a confidential servant of the establishment; and she, too, died in the early summer of that year. Charlotte was thus suddenly called into the responsibilities of eldest sister in a motherless family. She remembered how anxiously her dear sister Maria had striven, in her grave, earnest way, to be a tender helper and a counselor to them all; and the duties that now fell upon her seemed almost like a legacy from the gentle little sufferer so lately dead. Both Charlotte and Emily returned to school after the Midsummer holidays in this fatal year. But before the next winter it was thought desirable to advise their removal, as it was evident that the damp situation of the house at Cowen Bridge did not suit their health.” (47– 61)
Teachman, Debra. Understanding Jane Eyre : A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources & Historical Documents.
Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2001. p 55.
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/kdupg/Doc?id=10005612&ppg=73
Copyright © 2001. Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
NATURE VERSUS CIVILIZATION
Civilized society in Jane Eyre is the place in which women are not free to express their feelings and experience their desires without risking being declared mad. And yet Nature dictates, so Bronte ¨ seems to say, that women will have the same feelings, dreams, and needs for activity that men have. To underscore this point, the novel associates images of nature with ideas and events that place Jane beyond the bounds of acceptable feminine behavior. Images of nature in general and the moon in particular occur on several occasions when Jane experiences more emotion than a respectable Victorian woman should. The first association of moonlight with Jane’s excesses of emotion occurs when she is locked in the red room at Gateshead. There, as she becomes more and more frightened of the possibility that her uncle’s ghost will visit, she sees, or imagines seeing, a streak of light move across the wall. “Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred: while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head” (13). Jane never finds out precisely what caused the light, but her association of it with the natural light of the moon introduces the idea of using images of nature to indicate feelings that are more in tune with nature than with societal expectations. Another image of moonlight follows Jane’s emotional speech about her need for more excitement and activity than her life has thus far provided. After she comes down from the roof, she goes for a walk under “the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily” (132). While walking under this moon, she hears the beat of horse’s hooves and sees, suddenly coming into view, a large dog followed by a horse and rider. In this moment of passionate otherworldliness, she meets Mr. Rochester, her future husband, for the first time. It is not moonlight, but thunder and lightning that accompany Jane’s excess of emotion when Mr. Rochester proposes marriage. Her joy is as overwhelming as the storm itself, but the storm is also destructive: lightning strikes the large horse-chestnut tree, causing it to split in two. Mr. Rochester’s proposal is likewise destructive. He asks Jane to marry him because of his passion for her, but he knows that he cannot be truly married to her in the eyes of the church or the law. The divided tree represents his divided loyalties, “blasted” by the violence of his passion. When Jane leaves Thornfield, with no friend to go to and no job to support her needs, she decides that Nature, “the universal Mother,” is now her only friend (394). She sees Nature as “benign and good” and believes that she will protect her in her time of need (394). This “mother,” she believes, “would lodge me without money and without price” (394). She sleeps that night in the bosom of her mother, Nature, trusting her more than she has ever been able to trust mankind to take care of her. In the light of day, however, Jane realizes that Nature cannot and will not provide for all her needs. She must find a way to survive that acknowledges the civilized world of humanity as well as Nature. Thus, Jane goes back into society to look for a means of supporting herself. The final image of moonlight associated with extremes of emotion for Jane comes when, having almost given in to St. John’s demands to marry him, she hears Rochester’s voice calling to her, seemingly from across a mysterious void. Her feelings intensely affected, she notices that “the room was full of moonlight” (513). Moonlight, associated in folk traditions with the emotional depths of the soul, here suggests an almost supernatural connection with Jane’s deepest feelings for Rochester. Such depth of feeling was not something that a proper Victorian lady could admit to. In fact, having such depth of feeling was considered to be a sin against propriety for such a lady. Much of the criticism directed at the novel when it was first published was directed at Jane’s feeling and expressing such depth of emotion. Charlotte Bronte ¨ , in trying to create a strong female character who feels “just as men feel,” creates a novel that was considered downright dangerous by some readers, but with which multitudes of Victorian women could identify and approve (130).
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