Stylistic Features of Oscar Wilde’s Wrightings

seven deadly virtues”(p.192).

“People are either hunting for husbands or hiding from

them”(p.181).

She also had achieved her aims by the immoral actions: bribery and blackmail.

Most of Wilde’s characters are true representatives of their society. They are Lord Darlington, Lady Bracknell and especially Lord Illingworth, a person with cynical attitude towards everything in the world, who does not value the sincere human relations, to whom love, friendship ,faithfulness mean nothing. This can be clearly seen from some of his remarks.

e.g. “Women love us for our defects”(p.142).

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that

every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future”(p.140).

The most favoured subject for Wilde’s cynical comments is a woman and her position in the society of that time.

e.g. “Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the

woman”(p.108).

“Women are pictures. Men are problems.

If you want to know a woman really means, which is absolutely a

dangerous thing to do-look at her, do not listen to her”(p.138).

“You women live by your emotions and for them”(p.137).

Thus, we can see that epigrams and paradoxes play one of the most important roles in Wilde’s plays. With the help of these stylistic devices Wilde reflects his own viewpoints on the society of his time, his opinions about life, love and friendship, men and women. His judgements are the sharp and biting remarks. They are used in the plainest and the most direct sense. Wilde does not conceal his inner feelings and thoughts about the decomposition of intellectual world and English society. These epigrams and paradoxes are short and laconic, and are not very complex that makes them easy for remembering. So, paradoxes and epigrams create the individuality of Oscar Wilde. Wilde is famous for his brilliant epigrams and the wittiest paradoxes.

IRONY and PUN

In irony, which is the very interesting item for consideration, subjectivity lies in the evaluation of the phenomenon named. The essence of this stylistic device consists in the foregrounding not of the logical but of the evaluative meaning. The context is arranged so that the qualifying word in irony reverses the direction of the evaluation, and the word positively charged is understood as a negative qualification and vice versa.

According to professor Galperin I.R., irony is a stylistic device based on the simultaneous realisation of two logical meanings- dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each other.12According to Professor Kukharenko V.A., irony is a stylistic device in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning.13 So, like many other stylistic devices, irony does not exist outside the context. Irony must not be confused with humour, although they have very much in common. Humour always causes laughter. What is funny must come as a sudden clash of the positive and the negative. In this respect irony can be likened to humour. But the function of irony is not confined to producing a humorous effect. In a sentence like that: “How clever you are, Mr.Hopper” (p.43), where due to the intonation pattern, the word “clever” conveys a sense opposite to its literal signification. The irony does not cause a ludicrous effect. It rather expresses a feeling of irritation and displeasure. Here are some examples of irony:

e.g. “Oh, I love London Society! I think it has immensely

improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful