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Definition of Verbal Irony
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging outside and someone remarks "what... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean... read full definition
Act II
Explanation and Analysis—Marriage and Divorce:
Throughout the play, the male characters employ a large amount of paradox and verbal irony. Turning aphorisms and clichés on their head, the men use language that often toes the line between provocative and inappropriate. The effect of this is a large amount of puzzling, but ultimately witty, wordplay.
Pretty much any time they are on stage, characters like Cecil Graham, Dumby, and Lord Darlington express ideas that a woman would have to be more careful with at the time. Additionally, many of their lines revolve around making fun of and upstaging each other with witty wordplay. In one instance, Cecil Graham makes light of Lord Augustus and his failed marriages:
By the way, Tuppy, which is it? Have you been twice married and once divorced, or twice divorced and once married? I say you’ve been twice divorced and once married. It sounds so much more probable.
This conclusion is, of course, absurd, as it isn't possible to be divorced more times than one has been married. Cecil Graham's paradoxical verbal irony nevertheless captures a kernel of truth. By saying that Lord Augustus has been divorced more than he's been married, Cecil Graham implies that his friend is more adept at getting divorced than staying married. Whether present on stage or present in other characters' dialogue, Lord Augustus is continually the butt of people's jokes. He lacks the self-awareness and quickness of wit required to keep up with banter, to defend himself, and to get back at his taunting friends.
Cecil Graham's insult is punchy in part for its paradox and irony, and in part because it draws on the stigma of divorce. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was still very controversial to get divorced. However, the stigma of a ruptured marriage fell to a much greater degree on divorced women than on divorced men. This is why the men can make jokes about divorce: it is just controversial enough that Cecil Graham can use it for fodder in his mockery, but not inappropriate in the way that it would be if a woman tried her hand at a similar joke.
Throughout the play, the permission to treat marriage and divorce playfully in speech and action is primarily reserved for men. Lady Windermere, the play's most respected woman, takes marriage very seriously and would never make jokes about divorce. A woman who treats marriage and divorce with the same levity as Cecil Graham, like Mrs. Erlynne, inevitably becomes a personification of infamy.
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