The Importance of Being Earnest: Duality & Double Lives

This 28-slide lesson explores the themes of duality and double-lives in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.

The lesson encourages students to think about the numerous binaries and dualities throughout Wilde’s play, and how these relate to the idea of ‘earnestness’ that the play satirises. Sophisticated vocabulary is provided to help students with their analysis.

Students are presented with important literary and historical context, including Wilde’s own ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ and Stevenson’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, plus examples of real-life late-Victorian scandals which fed into and fuelled fin de siecle interests in the duality of man. We also explore dualities in Wilde’s own life.

The lesson considers how deception plays into the play’s key themes, and explores Wilde’s literary preoccupation with ‘masks’. Key quotations from the play (linked to duality or double-lives) are considered throughout the lesson, and each of the key characters are dissected.

Discussion points and questions are featured throughout. This lesson is ideal for A-level (age 16+) study of the text.

PowerPoint saved as PDF.