Switching Points of View
In Act I, Lady Windermere finds out that Lord Windermere has been giving large sums of money to Ms. Erlynne and forms a quite unfavorable opinion on the woman. Near the end of Act I, the contrasting opinions of Lady and Lord Windermere clash as Lord Windermere urges his wife to invite the woman to the birthday party that night and allow her to meet other women and enter respected society. Lady Windermere is firmly opposed to this, believing Ms. Erlynne a crude woman who is out to steal the husbands of others. By the end of the play, however, Lady Windermere and Lord Windermere have swapped opinions. This is especially clear in the conversation in which Lady Windermere says she wants to visit with Ms. Erlynne before leaving for the country, which Lord Windermere now tries to dissuade her from doing. The couple does not acknowledge that their positions have switched, but as they argue they even take opposite stances on women and life than in their prior, parallel argument.
Lady Windermere's Note
Overwhelmed by thoughts that her husband is cheating on her and Lord Darlington's confession of love, Lady Windermere leaves her own party early, leaving a note for her husband to find. Though the audience never finds out the exact contents of the note, one assumes that it says that Lady Windermere is running away from England with Lord Darlington. Ms. Erlynne takes this note and destroys it, meaning she holds all the information about the note and its contents. Meanwhile, Lord Windermere does not know there ever was a note and Lady Windermere, while waiting at Lord Darlington's house, believes that her husband has either already read it or will soon do so. This difference in information, as observed by the all-knowing audience, is an example of dramatic irony, which builds suspense around the conflict of the play throughout Act III.
Conversation about Mothers and Names
As Act IV of the play begins, it seems that everything will go back to normal: Lord and Lady Windermere make amends, Lord Windermere did not find Lady Windermere's note, and Lord Windermere hopes to whisk Lady Windermere away to the country before Ms. Erlynne's true identity can be revealed. However, Lady Windermere tells him that she wants to see Ms. Erlynne one last time, and even while Lord Windermere protests, Ms. Erlynne arrives at their home. What ensues is a long, suspenseful interaction in which Ms. Erlynne hints at, but does not completely reveal, that she is Lady Windermere's mother. They even talk about what supposedly happened to Lady Windermere's mother and the fact that Ms. Erlynne and Lady Windermere have the same Christian name. In this scene, the dramatic irony rests solely on Lady Windermere's lack of information, while Lord Windermere, Ms. Erlynne, and the audience know the truth of the situation.
Agatha "The Chatterbox"
A final, smaller irony comes in the form of the relationship between the Duchess of Berwick and Agatha, her daughter. These two women show an example of a mother/daughter relationship that Lady Windermere, perhaps thankfully, never got to experience. Duchess of Berwick teases and chides her daughter for being talkative and forward, apparently in earnest, while in reality her daughter seems to have a stunted personality and lacks conversational skills because of how much control her mother has in her life and how talkative her mother is.
