The Importance of Being Earnest Act I (Portion 1)

1. Suggested vocabulary list (to be copied out, translated, learnt and reproduced from the book):

   1. to consume smth

   2. a bachelor

   3. to attribute smth to smth

   4. to be of a superior quality

   5. to set a good example to smb

   6. customary

   7. reckless

   8. extravagance

   9. to speculate on smth

   10. to offer a reward to smb

   11. to be hard up

   12. to have a hard-and-fast rule about smth

   13. a guardian to smb

   14. under/in smb’s charge

   15. to alter

2. Answer the following questions:

   1. Where is the scene laid?

   2. Whom was Algernon preparing to receive?

   3. How did Lane account for entering eight bottles of champagne as having been consumed?

   4. What were Algernon’s views on the lower orders’ mission in life?

   5. Who appeared quite unexpectedly?

   6. What brought up Jack to town?

   7. What kind of feelings underlay the talk of the two young men about the cigarette case?

   8. How did Jack account for the inscription inside the cigarette case? Did he give probable or improbable explanations?

   9. What were the fantastic inventions of the two young men? (How did Jack account for being Ernest in town and Jack in town?)

   10. What were Algernon’s ideas about married life?

   11. What is your first impression of Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen?

   12. Speak on the changes in Lady Harbury after her husband’s death.

   13. Why did Lady Bracknell insist on Algernon’s presence at her reception and what did he promise to do for her?

   14. What are Lady Bracknell’s preferences in music?

3. Comment on the following:

   1. Divorces are made in Heaven.

   2. Girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.

   3. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.

   4. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects.

   5. In married life three is a company and two is none.

   6. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.

   7. If one plays good music, people don’t listen, and if one plays bad music, people don’t talk.

Act I (Portion 2)

1. Suggested vocabulary list (to be copied out, translated, learnt and reproduced from the book):

1. to take advantage of smth

2. to have a way of doing smth

3. to be aware of smth

4. irresistible

5. to propose to smb

6. to touch (up)on a subject

7. eligible

8. to make out

9. at a notice

10. to be (feel) bewildered

11. as far as smb/smth is concerned

12. profligate

13. hereditary

14. to run in a family

15. a ward

16. to get smb into a serious scrape

2. Answer the following questions:

   1. Why did Gwendolen advise Jack to take advantage of Lady Bracknell’s absense?

   2. Why did Gwendolen prefer the name of Ernest most of all?

   3. What kind of difficulties did Jack face when proposing to Gwendolen?

   4. What was Lady Bracknell’s reaction to Gwendolen’s words about her engagement? What are Lady Bracknell’s views on engagement?

   5. Why did she reject Jack’s proposal and what was her recommendation?

   6. What was Gwendolen’s reaction to her mother’s decision?

   7. Why did Jack get so furious when Algernon struck the Wedding March?

   8. Why did Jack compare Lady Bracknell to a Gorgon?

   9. Why was Algernon so glad at the end of the act?

   10. What was Jack planning to do to get rid of the profligate Ernest?

3. Comment on the following:

   1. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else.

   2. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she should be allowed to arrange for herself.

   3. A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

   4. All women become like their mothers.. That’s their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

   5. The truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl.

   6. The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

   7. Women only call each other sisters when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

   8. Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over my mother , I lost at the age of three.