Topic 12 - Meaning between the lines (Session A) > Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama > Task B > Answer

Inference and the Discourse Architecture of Drama

Task B - Our answer

Lady Bracknell knows that Algernon is not coming to dinner because (she thinks) that his friend Bunbury is ill. Jack and the audience know that Algernon is lying (there is no Bunbury) and that he is using Bunbury's fictitious illness to get out of the dinner party.

In addition, we can infer some things about Algernon's character. He is inventive and he will lie to get his way. These last things would seem to be matters which Wilde wants the audience, as licensed overhearers to infer about Algernon. Hence these 'meanings between the lines' operate at the author-audience level but not at the character level in the play (except for Jack, who has the same contextual knowledge as us, and so could infer the same things).

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