Comedy of manners
Comic dramatic form satirising social conventions, manners, and affectations of fashionable society.
Real World
Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) satirises Victorian upper-class obsessions with propriety and marriage through characters like Lady Bracknell, whose absurd social rigidity exposes the hollowness of polite society.
Exam Focus
Link character behaviour to specific social conventions being satirised; examiners reward analysis of how wit and dialogue expose hypocrisy.
How well did you know this?