Do you teach The Importance of Being Earnest?

[gobleu]

Too funny!

We finished Earnest earlier this week but today a student asked me why Gwendolen is called Gwendolen Fairfax if her mother is Lady Bracknell and her father is Lord Bracknell. I never really put any thought into it before. I asked another teacher at my school who has taught it for a few years and she never realized the difference either. Is it a title thing? Is Fairfax Lady Bracknell's maiden name? I don't think Lady Bracknell remarried after Gwendolen. Why the difference? Ideas?

[cuppajoe_9]

Bracknell is the name of the estate that the characters are Lord and Lady of, while Fairfax is their surname. Robert Fairfax, second Earl of Bracknell would be called, in conversation, Lord Bracknell.

I believe that's how it works, anyway.