This short gem shows Oscar Wilde's understanding of the British Victorian mind. He skewers upper-class society adroitly. The language used is a bit verbose and grand for our modern ears but Wilde has such a penetrating understanding of humans that his story transcends it all.

This play is about trust between spouses and how things are not as they always seem. Wilde's humor is sharp and entertaining. Wilde has added pithy phrases and witticisms to the English language and this play offers several of them. Here are two that are particularly clever from this play:

*What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
*There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

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