Wilde specifically takes digs at country life versus city
life in the showdown between Gwendolyn and Cecily on Act 2, Part
II.
As Gwendolyn comes from the "fashionable" city of
London to visit her Earnest in his country manor, she feels threatened by Cecily's
presence there, and thinks her to be quite plain and
silly.
Since both women were confused as to which of them
was actually marrying Earnest, they began a sarcastic showdown that went like
this:
Gwendolen. Are
there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss
Cardew?
Cecily. Oh! yes! a
great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five
counties.
Gwendolen. Five
counties! I don’t think I should like that; I hate
crowds.
Cecily. [Sweetly.] I
suppose that is why you live in town? [Gwendolen bites her
lip, and beats her foot nervously with her
parasol.]
Gwendolen. [Looking
round.] Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss
Cardew.
Cecily. So glad you
like it, Miss
Fairfax.
Gwendolen. I had no
idea there were any flowers in the
country.
Cecily. Oh, flowers
are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in
London.
Gwendolen. Personally
I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country, if anybody who is
anybody does. The country always bores me to
death.
Cecily. Ah! This is
what the newspapers call agricultural depression, is it not? I believe the aristocracy
are suffering very much from it just at present. It is almost an epidemic amongst them,
I have been told. May I offer you some tea, Miss
Fairfax?
This was the way
Wilde showed how the city people viewed the country folk and vice-versa. In the dialogue
the two women had tea, and even the food was a problem that led to another showdown that
went like this:
Cecily. [Sweetly.]
Sugar?
Gwendolen.
[Superciliously.] No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more.
[Cecily looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts
four lumps of sugar into the
cup.]
Cecily. [Severely.] Cake
or bread and
butter?
Gwendolen. [In a bored
manner.] Bread and butter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses
nowadays.
Cecily. [Cuts a very
large slice of cake, and puts it on the tray.] Hand that to Miss
Fairfax.
[Merriman does so,
and goes out with footman. Gwendolen drinks the tea and
makes a grimace. Puts down cup at once, reaches out her hand to the bread and butter,
looks at it, and finds it is cake. Rises in
indignation.]
Gwendolen. You
have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and
butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the
extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too
far.
In general, the
fashionable Londoners always looked down on the country people who chose to live there
instead of just having a home in the city and one in the country. It was understood that
such persons chose not to live in London because they were not sophisticated nor wordily
enough to keep up with the aristocrats, et al. You can see the same form of classicism
in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in Dickens's Great Expectations, and in Sense and
Sensibility as well.
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