Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter - a girl brought up with the utmost care - to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the disdain for social class differences in marriage, particularly regarding the speaker's daughter.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde uses irony to critique the rigid social hierarchies of his time, particularly the absurdity of valuing social status over love. The character expresses disbelief that an influential and respected family would allow their daughter to marry someone of lower social standing, highlighting the societal pressures and expectations surrounding marriage and class.
Themes
MarriageSocial ClassSocietyRelationshipsIrony
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of social class on relationships.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes βLondon is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
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When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
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Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
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A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
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His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead
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