Relationships through Physicality
When writing a play, authors have a good deal of freedom with regard to their stage directions. They can give specific notes on how to say each line, how to move, and which set/props to use, or they can leave it up to the director and actors. One important aspect of this show's imagery, which Wilde chooses to give a lot of detail about in the stage directions, is the relationships of characters in physical space. For example, in the first scene it must be communicated that Lord Darlington is enamored with Lady Windermere but trying not to fully reveal it, while Lady Windermere is not romantically attracted to Lord Darlington and moves happily and distractedly around the room. Wilde gives details about the points at which the characters move from standing and walking to sitting at the table and on the couch, which accompanies the friendly conversation to create the audience's first impressions of their relationship and feeling towards one another.
Australia
Oscar Wilde creates moment of light humor when the Duchess of Berwick describes Australia to Mr. Hopper, perhaps trying to demonstrate her and her daughter's learnedness. The woman says, "It must be so pretty with all the dear little kangaroos flying about. Agatha has found it on the map. What a curious shape it is! Just like a large packing case" (21). The description, though detailed and even containing figurative language, demonstrates how little the frivolous Duchess knows about Australia and likely the world at large.
Mrs. Erlynne
Since Mrs. Erlynne is the main source of gossip in the play, characters often talk together about her, focusing on different aspects and attributes. Some conversations focus on her physical attributes, while others discuss her use of feminine wiles to associate with various men as well as women to promote herself socially. It is of special importance that she is described by multiple characters before she herself appears onstage during Act II, meaning the audience will make their impressions from the imagery in the dialogue of Act I.
Mrs. Erlynne's Own Feelings
While Mrs. Erlynne is discussed by many if not all of the other characters, she also has a rich inner life as depicted more and more throughout the play. Wilde describes her emotional experience vividly for the audience in the dialogue of Act III in which Mrs. Erlynne tries to convince Lady Windermere not to leave her husband and child. Mrs. Erlynne's most effective tactic is passionately describing the feeling of leaving one's child and being cast out of society. In one of the most moving sections, the woman says:
You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at - to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one’s face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don’t know what it is. One pays for one’s sin, and then one pays again, and all one’s life one pays.
Mrs. Erlynne uses repetition to drive her points home as well as to show how long, tedious, and emotionally taxing particular parts of her experience have been. She also uses the metaphors of closed doors and masks to show the way society can close itself to people and they must wear a disguise to try to get back in. In addition, her focus on the vivid experience of hearing horrible, surrounding laughter is especially strong imagery.
