weapons Sir R.Chiltern means. It is money and the way it is earned by is unimportant. The way of earning money may be different: bribery, blackmail, forgery and other immoral actions. Once Sir Chiltern achieved his aims at the cost of his honour-he sold the secrete information. He had not any regret for what he had done. He said that he had fought the century with his own weapon and won. And when his misdemeanour was revealed, he tried to save himself.
Another “immoralist” of the English society is Mrs.Cheveley.
e.g. “Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has
to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other
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.112 “Stylistics” by Galperin I.R., p.146
2
According 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.113 “A Book of Practice in Stylistics” by Kukharenko V.A., p.46
3 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
idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society
should be.” (p.175)
“And in England a man who can’t talk morality
twice a week to a large, popular, immoral
audience is quite over as a serious politician.”
(p.210)
“All women become like their mothers. That is
their tragedy. No man does. That is his.” (p.300)
These examples show that irony is a mode of speech in which the opposite of what is said is meant. The speaker of the first example, Mabel Chiltern does not really think that it is good for London Society to consist of “beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics”. Wilde’s method of ironical usage is mostly direct: he speaks of the decomposition of people, their ideals and values. The effect of irony lies in the striking disparity between what is said and what is meant. This is achieved through