The Importance of Being Earnest: Lady Bracknell

This 24-slide lesson explores the character of Lady Bracknell from Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.

Wilde’s presentation of Lady Bracknell is thoroughly deconstructed, with students asked to consider her theatrical heritage via Greek stock characters and the Comedy of Manners. We debate to what extent Lady Bracknell can be called the play’s ‘antagonist’, and how Wilde uses her to catalyse key events or provide comical obstacles in the play.

Wilde’s structural use of Lady Bracknell is analysed, and important quotations from her and relating to her are dissected. We think about what we can learn from the stage directions about Lady Bracknell, and discuss how Wilde uses the offstage character of Lord Bracknell to inform Lady Bracknell’s character.

We consider Lady Bracknell in the context of the ‘New Woman’ and students are provided with key vocabulary that might be used to analyse Lady Bracknell. Modern theatrical interpretations (including gender inversions) of Lady Bracknell are discussed. Students are also encouraged to think critically about how Lady Bracknell interacts with props and how Wilde positions her at the end of the play.

Questions and discussion points are provided for students throughout the lesson. An exam-style essay question is featured at the end. Exemplar sentences and sentence openers are provided for students to enable sophisticated analysis, including purposeful introductions to extended essays.

This lesson is ideal for high-level analysis of Lady Bracknell.

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