What role do sex and lust play in Amanda and Elyot’s relationship? How does sexual desire factor in the duality of love and hate? How does sexuality transgress or perpetuate rigid gender expectations?

The role of Louise, the maid, is brief but significant in the play’s final act. What does she represent in terms of class, privacy, and privilege? What is the significance of her marginal place in the play?

How does the play portray Elyot and Amanda’s desire for passion versus Victor and Sibyl’s representation of stability? Are Elyot and Amanda misguided and deluded in their attempts to reconcile, or are they self-aware renegades challenging the pressure to conform to society’s expectations?

What purpose do the physical scenes of violence and discussions of violence serve in the play? How do they sit with contemporary discussions of domestic violence?

How does Coward’s “camp” aesthetics contribute to the play’s themes as a comedy of manners? Does Private Lives fulfill Susan Sontag’s definition that camp is “apolitical” or does the play offer political critiques?

Coward contends that the secondary characters of Victor and Sibyl are thin. In what ways are they flat characters? In what ways are they more nuanced than Coward implied?

Elyot and Amanda share a skill in witty repartee that almost functions as a love language. How do the characters communicate with each other? What do Elyot and Amanda value in their fast-paced and seemingly trivial conversations?

Critics have described Private Lives variably as a farce or a tragedy, depending on the interpretation of Elyot and Amanda’s inability to live together or stay apart. How do Elyot and Amanda assess their own relationship and the cause of their volatile dynamic? How can two people so alike fail?