Lady Windermere's Fan

Lady Windermere's Fan Literary Elements

Genre

Play, Satire

Language

English

Setting and Context

England, late 19th century

Narrator and Point of View

N/A

Tone and Mood

Witty, satirical, lightly tragi-comic

Protagonist and Antagonist

N/A

Major Conflict

Lady Windermere believes that her husband, Lord Windermere, is cheating on her with a woman, Mrs. Erlynne, who is new to the city. Lord Windermere, in fact, is giving Mrs. Erlynne money so that she will not reveal she is the mother of Lady Windermere.

Climax

Mrs. Erlynne has the chance to reveal to Lady Windermere that she is her mother, but she decides not to.

Foreshadowing

Mrs. Erlynne hints that she is Lady Windermere's mother before it is fully revealed to the audience.

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

N/A

Imagery

As society and propriety are of central importance to the play, denotations of dress and physical movements to one another are important to understanding characters' emotions and relationships as well as the progress of the play.

Paradox

N/A

Parallelism

Without knowing about her mother's past actions, Lady Windermere almost makes the same exact decisions her mother, Mrs. Erlynne, once did in leaving her husband and young child.

Personification

N/A

Use of Dramatic Devices

Irony and dramatic irony are the most important dramatic devices used in the play, especially with regard to secrets and notes.

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