townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-6.6
Originality-9.0
Plot-7.0
Literary Merit-8.5
Overall-7.2

This is my first Oscar Wilde play (Amy says that The Importance of Being Earnest is the best). I’ve read a bunch of his quotes, there’s a ton of good one’s floating around out there. And he comes highly recommended by Morrissey:

‘A dreaded sunny day
so let’s go where we’re wanted
and I’ll meet you at the cemetery gates.
Keats and Yeats are on your side – but you lose.
While Wilde is on mine.’

Wilde is pretty darn funny. He pretty much pooh-poohs everything about society, sort of like a gay H.L. Mencken. Examples:

MRS. CHEVELEY: Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women merely adored.
SIR ROBERT: You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?
MRS. CHEVELEY: Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.
SIR ROBERT: And women represent the irrational.
MRS. CHEVELEY: Well-dressed women do.

SIR ROBERT CHILTON: Do you know, Arthur, I sometimes wish I were you.
LORD ARTHUR GORING: Do you know, Robert, sometimes I wish you were too. Except that you would probably make something useful out of my life, and that would never do.

And the more serious:

'Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.'

This play is about marriage and politics. One character has a Dostoyevskian moral dilemma relating to his political career. Also wrapped up in this is his wife’s ideal of him as a perfect person, which of course he’s not, and neither is she, and neither is anyone else. So I guess that’s pretty much the point.

If you like Oscar Wilde quotes and you like reading plays definitely check this one out. There are funny, clever lines throughout and it’s a good story with a smart message.