Because this play is meant to embody victorian society, Wilde is able to interpret and criticize the high importance of social identity to Victorians. The encompassing critic that Wilde addresses in his script involves the corrupt nature of society and the hypocrisy of presenting oneself as a wholesome, earnest person when reality indicates otherwise. This play symbolically allows us to view the characters as an example of all elite Victorian society. Bromige declares that, “reading or watching the play is to observe the unconscious of the society of Wilde’s day” (1). The bulk of the play revolves around the character’s fixation on their reputation and their desire to be seen prestigious members of society; Wilde makes a mockery of these priorities to satirize aristocracy. When Jack first asks for Gwendolen’s hand in marriage, Lady Bracknell pointedly announces: “I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men... I have the have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact” (Wilde Act 982). The way that Lady Bracknell casually but intentionally mentions her relationship with the Duchess shows her instinctual effort to make herself appear more prestigious through her elite acquaintance. She even implies her supposed intimacy with the Duchess by first referring to her as “the dear Duchess,” then declares that she works together with her. Further along in their conversation, Jack informs Lady Bracknell that he was found in a cloak closet and is without relations, to which she replies: “I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the s...
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...cnel, Kim. "Literary Contexts In Plays: Oscar Wilde's "The Importance Of Being Earnest." Literary Contexts In Plays: Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance Of Being Earnest' (2006): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.Bromige, David. The Importance of Being Earnest.” Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
Desmet, Christy, D. Alexis. Hart, and Deborah Church. Miller. Prentice Hall Literature Portfolio. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Garland, Tony W. “The Contest of Naming Between Ladies in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.” Explicator 70.4 (2012): 272-274. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 APr. 2014.
Lalonde, Jeremy. "A "Revolutionary Outrage": "The Importance Of Being Earnest" As Social Criticism." Modern Drama 48.4 (2005): 659-676. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
In the Victorian era, courtship rituals were slightly different from modern time courtships. It started with couples speaking first, going out together, and finally they would keep each other company after mutual attraction was confirmed. The character Jack, in all his seriousness, refutes these rituals. Gwendolyn says “I adore you. But you haven’t proposed to me yet. Nothing has been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on.” (Wilde, 622) This shows that Jack is ignoring the stages of courting and jumping right into marriage. Wilde is certainly satirically commenting on courting and how there really just has to be a mutual attraction. Upon Gwendolyn’s acceptance of his proposal, the problems with different social affairs begin to be unraveled. Gwendolyn says “I am told; and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence…” (Wilde, 622) In fact, Ernest's love for Gwendolyn seems rather arbitrary while Gwendolyn indirectly admits that she loves Ernest only for his name. This just adds to the satirizing of courtship because the girl only will marry him because he has the name Ernest.
The title The Namesake mirrors the struggle of Gogol Ganguli, child of Ashoke and Ashima, Indian foreigners to the U.S.A. to get personality in the way of life where he is conceived and raised with his strange name. Names do make them mean in India. A considerable measure of practice is done when a youngster is named in India. An Indian tyke for the most part conveys two names, a pet name and an official one. Pet names are for the family and neighbours and colleagues. They convey or may not convey meaning. In any case, official names are kept with a great deal of care and practice.
Wilde does this in order to portray Lady Bracknell with very strong Victorian views that are illogical and humorous to the reader thus satirising the values which are prominent in Victorian standards. Consequently it can be seen that Lady Bracknell is corrupt beyond reason, sacrificing the happiness of her daughter for her Victorian values and ridiculing Jack for his less than exemplary past. Some critics believe Lady Bracknell to be a ‘living parody of upper class values’ which can be
Wilde’s didactic satire delves deep into the problems of society, highlighting to the audience all the flaws of human beings and their social obligations while keeping it light-hearted and enjoyable for audiences. The author’s mockery and satire of society, as seen in his play, is most likely stemmed from his lack of acceptance and frustration at the society he believes to be ‘proper’. Readers today laugh at the situations portrayed because they are satirical and humourous, but they also question the motives behind the character “Earnest” because they see that “earnest”, meaning seriousness or sincerity, is the one thing the characters most certainly do not portray. However, towards the end of the play, when all has come out, Jack states that “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest” (Wilde 2000, p.358), which may in fact be the most blatantly satirical line of the play, and a great summation of the lies the play relied on. This explores Wilde’s use of double entendre as Jack lives a double life, alongside the use of an elaborate p...
The Importance of Being Earnest is regarded as one of the most successful plays written by Oscar Wilde, a great 19th century playwright. Oscar Wilde deals with something unique about his contemporary age in this drama. It addresses Victorian social issues, French theatre, farce, social drama and melodrama. All these factors influenced the structure of the play in a large scale. This play is basically a Victorian satirical drama showcasing the social, political, economic and religious structural changes that affected 18th century England. It was the time when British Empire had captured most part of the world including Oscar Wilde’s homeland, Ireland. The aristocrats of England had become dominant over the middle and poor class people and Wilde wrote plays with the motivation to encourage people to think against the English aristocracy and artificiality.
...Lady Bracknell was excited to hear that Cecily has wealth; she almost instantaneously consented to her marriage to Algernon. Wilde uncovers the frivolousness of their proclaimed love by displaying how Lady Bracknell would only consent for
In Oscar Wilde’s drama The Importance of Being Earnest, he uses light-hearted tones and humor to poke fun at British high society while handling the serious theme of truth and the true identity of who is really “Earnest.” Truth as theme is most significantly portrayed through the women characters, Gwendolen and Cecily but to present serious themes comically, Wilde portrays women to be the weaker sex of society, despite the seriousness of the subject—the identity of the men they want to marry.
Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax, and Cecily Cardew are all female character’s who challenge gender roles. In the case of Lady Bracknell, she is presented more as a father figure to her daughter, Gwendolen, then a mother. In a scene in Act I, Lady Bracknell takes on the role of the f...
It has been said that ‘Comedy, beginning in turmoil but ending in harmony, celebrates life.’ and this is the general idea with ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ Wilde proves that this comedy of manners does conform to this model. As Lady Bracknell tries to prolong the resolution and tries to prevent the marriage between Jack and Gwendolyn, she can be seen as a ‘gorgon’ because she refuses to let Gwendolyn marry Jack. Despite this, She may be seen as a heroine because she is a strong, commanding woman who isn’t passive like traditional Victorian women as she makes decisions which indicates that she has power within the play. Furthermore, Wilde has constructed her in such a way that she dominates the company wherever she is present and judges people according to their wealth even though she is from a non-aristocratic background. Therefore, Lady Bracknell may be viewed as a character that stays ‘bad’. Despite the obstacles surrounding Lady Bracknell, there are some aspects throughout the play which do conform to this model. For instance, Jack faces problems during the play which are then resolved through his actions and are consequently followed by happiness in the resolution when he finds out ‘the vital Importance of Being Earnest’ . Similarly, the same can be said for Algernon who lies to please the women that he desires to achieve happiness in Act 3. Therefore, depending on each character and their actions beforehand, they either face happiness or distress which indicates that comedy does have some elements of movement from distress to happiness and from ‘bad’ to ‘good’.
One of the Oscar Wilde’s most loved, well known and successful play ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’ was written during the summer of 1894 at Worthing, England. It was first performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James’s theatre, London. Jack Worthing, the play’s main character was found and adopted by a wealthy man, Thomas Cardew in a handbag at a railway line where he was accidentally abandoned as a baby. All the respect that has been given to him as acknowledged upper-class Victorian is only because of his adopted father’s wealth. As the protagonist of the play he is expected to be an earnest man to do justice to the title of the play, but it turned out to be that he is nowhere close to that. Wilde has used Jack’s character more to an instrument to represent a set of ideas or attitudes.
Wilde’s criticism of high society and manners are explored through the characteristics of Lady Bracknell; the dialogue between Gwendolen and Cecily; and the characteristics of Jack in the country. Wilde’s criticism of high society and manners is shown by creating absurd situations and characters whose lack of insight causes them to respond in an inappropriate manner. An example is shown in Lady Bracknell’s preoccupation with her own parties and that the lack of sympathy for invalids makes her react to the news of Bunbury’s illness in an exaggeratedly cold manner. “I think it is high time that Mr Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me”.
Contrary to the stereotypical woman of the Victorian culture, both female characters Gwendolen and Cecily become instigators of love, from influencing the proposal to composing their own love letters from their lovers. Gwendolen affirms her forwardness in romantic matters when she exclaims to Jack who is hesitant about proposing, “I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose” (Powell, 132). Not only do the ladies have a skewed view of marriage and their responsibilities within that relationship, but the men do as well. Algernon says of proposals, “I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted” (Ericksen, 150). He clearly has a skewed view of marriage. When it comes to Lady Bracknell, her view of marriage is primarily concerned with money and sometimes concerned with social respectability. When questioning Jack about the potential of marrying Gwendolen, she focuses on typically irrelevant characteristics. Lady Bracknell says of Jack’s confession to his tendency to smoke, “I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind” (Greenblat, 539-540). She goes on to take interest in such things as his knowledge and education, finances, and family
In conclusion, The Importance of Being Earnest strongly focuses on those of the upper class society and the vanity of the aristocrats who place emphasis on trivial matters concerning marriage. Both Algernon and Jack assume the identity of "Ernest" yet ironically, they both are beginning their marital lives based on deception and lies. Lady Bracknell represents the archetypal aristocrat who forces the concept of a marriage based on wealth or status rather than love. Through farce and exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the foolish and trivial matters that the upper class society looks upon as being important. As said earlier, a satiric piece usually has a didactic side to it. In this case, Lady Bracknell learns that the same person she was criticising is actually her own flesh and blood.
Wilde purposely used her role to portray how closed minded the society was, with her opinions and mannerism betraying a carefully calculated speaking pattern with witty epigrams and social wordplay to tear other characters apart. As a ruthless social climber and spokesperson for the status quo, she was not always part of the upper class but rather married into aristocracy, as she previously represent the formerly excluded. However, now that she is Lady Bracknell, she has opinions on just about everything and with her behavior enforcing social discrimination and exclusion for the outsiders from her class; she is an invention of Wilde’s to present his satire on these subjects. For example, when Jack proposed to her daughter Gwendolen, this was the moment that Lady Bracknell was able to “flex” her muscles and bend the rules to suit her pleasure as she saw marriage of more of an alliance for property and social security than love or passion. Thus Jack was placed on her list of eligible suitors if only he could pass her series of challenging tests. Yet at the same time Lady Bracknell relentlessly gives Jack “correct” but immoral advice on finding his parents. "I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire
Lady Bracknell represents the typical aristocrat who focuses the idea of marriage on social and economic status. She believes that if the men trying to marry these girls are not of proper background, there is no engagement. Through this major exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the irrational and insignificant matters that the upper class society uses to view marriage.