Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde’s Wrightings

The remarks of this “Lady” characterise her brilliantly. We can clearly see a scheming woman, an adventurer, who stops at nothing in gaining her filthy aims. She does not show her real face, she always disguises it. But her cynical remarks betray her. Another example of irony used by O.Wilde:

e.g. “Lord Goring: I adore political parties. They are

the only place left to us where people do not talk

politics”. (p.184)

The members of political parties must talk politics, it is their duty. They must be very serious and honest people and they must work for people’s well being, but instead of it they do not do anything for people. During their political parties they pronounce some absurd, cynical words and discuss rumours and gossips.

e.g. “Oh, we all want friends at times” (p.25)

Lord Darlington, saying this phrase, hides his love for Lady Windermere behind the word “friend”, but she does not accept his version of “friendship” in such kind and does not want to be with him. Oscar Wilde considers the word “friend” to have different meaning: people always need friends, not only for temporary period of time. The meaning of this word conveys a constant quality.

The specific, cynical quality of Wilde’s irony is manifested in his manner of writing. This device allows Wilde to reveal incongruity of the world around him and to show the viciousness of the upper - class society.

Pun is the next stylistic device used by Oscar Wilde in his plays.

According to Professor Sosnovskaya V.B., pun (paronomasia, a play on words) is a figure of speech emerging as an effect created by words similar or identical in their sound form and contrastive or incompatible in meaning.13According to Prof. Galperin I.R., the pun is a stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase. It is difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and the pun. The reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realisation of two meanings with the help of the verb which is made to refer to different subjects or objects. The pun is more independent. There need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to which the pun-word refers. This does not mean. However, that the pun is entirely free. Like any other stylistic device, it must depend on a context. But the context may be of a more expanded character, sometimes even as large as a whole work of emotive prose.14

Thus, the title of one of Oscar Wilde’s plays, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, has a pun in it. But in order to understand this pun we must read the whole play, because the name of the hero and the adjective meaning “seriously-minded” are both existing in our mind.

Pun is based on the effect of deceived expectation, because unpredictability in it is expressed either in the appearance of the elements of the text unusual for the reader or in the unexpected reaction of the addressee of the dialogue.

However playful is the effect of pun, however intricate and sudden is the merging of senses in one sound complex, in a truly talented work this unit of poetic speech shares equally with others in the expression of the author’s message. It is a vehicle of the author’s thought not a mere decoration. Pun is one of the most favoured devices of Oscar Wilde. In his comedies there are about twenty examples of pun. In this Chapter we will try to analyse some of them. For Wilde pun is one of the most effective means used for creating wit, brilliancy and colourfulness of his dialogues for criticism of bourgeois morality. At the same time the puns serve for showing the author’s ideas and thoughts.

e.g. “Lord Goring: My dear farther, only people who

look dull ever get into the House of Commons,

and only people who are dull ever succeed

there”.(p.257)

“Lord Darlington: Ah, nowadays we are all of us

so hard up, that the only pleasant things to pay

are compliments. They are the only things we

can pay.”(p.24)