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Critical analysis of the importance of being earnest
Critical analysis of the importance of being earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
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Oscar Wilde Biography Oscar (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills) Wilde was a witty, eccentric, and “dandy” man who was born in Dublin on October 16, 1954. The names Oscar and Fingal originate from Irish folklore. His main calling in life was to diverge from the strict Victorian tradition and society. Wilde was raised in a busy upper class Victorian household where artists, writers, and professionals often visited. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a distinguished surgeon who was Queen Victoria’s oculist and was later knighted for founding a hospital. Wilde’s mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was a famous a writer and novelist advocating Irish independence. Although he didn’t make many friends during school, Wilde demonstrated his brilliance throughout …show more content…
Written in 1895, it is Wilde’s last play, but it leaves the greatest impact of all of his literary works. The play follows Jack Worthing, an upper class man who lives a double life in England during the Victorian era. He goes by the name Jack in the country, and Ernest in the city, using the mishaps of his fake brother who he named Ernest as an excuse to go to the city. Eventually, a complicated love affair occurs as a result of Jack’s double life. The Importance of Being Earnest is such a unique classic that it cannot be truly classified with other plays of similar manner. Its message against traditional Victorian tradition is powerful while keeping an extraordinary satirical and farcical …show more content…
As John Drinkwater states in his critique of the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest really forms a class in English drama by itself.” Some may attempt to classify into a specific category, but the reality is that its unparalleled style is like no other. The play brilliantly utilizes farcical humor as a primary tool to fuel the plot. One example of this takes place when Gwendolen, the love interest of Jack, declares that her “ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest.” Jack puts himself in a position that coincidentally leads to his name being Ernest in the city. A large portion of the plot carries on due to this coincidence. In fact, most of the story is brought about due to farcical situations rather than character development. This style of writing generates unrealistic situations such that - as Arthur Ransome explains in his criticism - “the plot has been lightened till it can fly with the wings of the dialogue.” There is never a time in the play that should is taken really seriously. Even when Jack informs Miss Prism, the governess, that his brother, Ernest, “dies,” Miss Prism replies with the witty statement, “What a lesson for him! I hope he will profit by it.” The fact that a character’s death is a joke and has almost no real impact on the characters exemplifies the light nature of the play. The overall style of the play assists one of the play’s
Jack’s persona ‘Earnest’ has been described by Miss Prism as “irretrievably weak and vacillating” (701.35). Not only that, but Jack uses his persona of Earnest to make it seem like Jack adheres to notions of duty, honor and respectability all the while getting into mischief in London as his fake brother Ernest. Jack has shown that he will even lie to his loved ones his persona in order to get away with misbehaving and be seen as upright and moral. Later into the play Jack and his double life collide when the woman he loves starts to love his alter ego Earnest, although Ernest was an escape Jack used for his personal life but when his personal life and his real life collide he has to embrace his deception to get the life that he truly
AThe Importance of Being Earnest a play written by Oscar Wilde is set in England in the late Victorian era. Wilde uses obvious situational and dramatic irony within the play to satirize his time period. According to Roger Sale in Being Ernest the title has a double meaning to it and is certainly another example of satire used by Wilde. With a comedic approach, Wilde ridicules the absurdities of the character’s courtship rituals, their false faces, and their secrets. (Sale, 478)
The Importance of Being Earnest, a trivial Comedy is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on February 14 1895, it is a comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious identities to escape demanding social obligations. Throughout the play,
Oscar Wilde’s, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, play carefully uses satire as a didactic tool to mask the underlying social commentary with the help of comedy through characters theme and dialogue. Wilde uses satire to ridicule class and wealth, marriage and the ignorance of the Victorian Age. Audiences are continually amused by Wilde’s use of linguistic and comic devices such as double entendre, puns, paradox and epigrams, especially in the case of social commentary and didactic lessons. Characters portrayed in the play such as Jack, Cecily, Algernon and Lady Bracknell, allow Wilde to express his opinions on the social problems during the Victorian Age.
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.
Two adolescent women who incorrectly consider the men’s names to be Ernest, and who are passionate about the men for this very reason think highly of both Jack and Algernon. In relating the story of mix-ups and mistaken identities, the ideals and manners of the Victorian society are satirized in a comedy where the characters "treat all the trivial things of life seriously and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality"(Wilde, Oscar). Oscar Wilde’s amusing scenes often take their source in societal satire and unconventional (Baselga 15). All the way through his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde satirizes education, women, and morality.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, to William and Jane Wilde, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, Ireland. Oscar’s father, William, was one of Ireland’s most respected surgeon and author, while his mother, Jane, was a poet and went by the nom de plume “Speranza”. Oscar was the second of their three children, but he also had three half-siblings from his father’s side. Oscar and his two siblings were raised in an artistic atmosphere, particularly due to his mother’s occupation and personality.
Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde plays around with the standard expectations along with the absence of compassion of a Victorian society in the 1890’s, he demonstrates this through several genres of comedy such as Melodrama, Comedy of Manners, Farce, dark humour and Irony, as well as portraying the themes, death and illness, in this play in a brilliance of unusual amount of references.
The Importance of Being Earnest appears to be a conventional 19th century farce. False identities, prohibited engagements, domineering mothers, lost children are typical of almost every farce. However, this is only on the surface in Wilde's play. His parody works at two levels- on the one hand he ridicules the manners of the high society and on the other he satirises the human condition in general. The characters in The Importance of Being Earnest assume false identities in order to achieve their goals but do not interfere with the others' lives. The double life led by Algernon, Jack, and Cecily (through her diary) is simply another means by which they liberate themselves from the repressive norms of society. They have the freedom to create themselves and use their double identities to give themselves the opportunity to show opposite sides of their characters. They mock every custom of the society and challenge its values. This creates not only the comic effect of the play but also makes the audience think of the serious things of life.
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 satirical piece usually has a didactic side to it.
In the play, Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde ridicules and identifies the negative aspects of Victorian society through comedic dialogue. He uses characters with ridiculous personalities to demonstrate his idea of Victorian life. By making absurd scenes with foolish characters, it is his way of mocking the Victorian lifestyle passive aggressively.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a play written by Oscar Wilde during the Victorian era. It is a farcical comedy in which the main characters live and maintain a fictional persona to escape their responsibilities. To which Oscar Wilde uses secondary characters within the play such as Lady Bracknell to humorously make her the tool of the conflict and much of the satire. She is the first and foremost a symbol of Victorian earnests and the unhappiness it brings as a result. Lady Bracknell was specially designed to represent Wilde’s opinion of the upper Victorian class repressiveness and traditional negativity. Hence minor characters such as Lady Bracknell play essential roles as they help both the plot and support the themes with assistance
Oscar Wilde was born in October 16, 1854, in the mid era of the Victorian period—which was when Queen Victoria ruled. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901.While she ruined Britain, the nation rise than never before, and no one thought that she was capable of doing that. “The Victorian era was both good and bad due to the rise and fall of the empires and many pointless wars were fought. During that time, culture and technology improved greatly” (Anne Shepherd, “Overview of the Victorian Era”). During this time period of English, England was facing countless major changes, in the way people lived and thought during this era. Today, Victorian society is mostly known as practicing strict religious or moral behavior, authoritarian, preoccupied with the way they look and being respectable. They were extremely harsh in discipline and order at all times. Determination became a usual Victorian quality, and was part of Victorian lifestyle such as religion, literature and human behavior. However, Victorian has its perks, for example they were biased, contradictory, pretense, they cared a lot of about what economic or social rank a person is, and people were not allowed to express their sexuality. Oscar Wilde was seen as an icon of the Victorian age. In his plays and writings, he uses wit, intelligence and humor. Because of his sexuality he suffered substantially the humiliation and embarrassment of imprisonment. He was married and had an affair with a man, which back then was an act of vulgarity and grossness. But, that was not what Oscar Wilde was only known for; he is remembered for criticizing the social life of the Victorian era, his wit and his amazing skills of writing. Oscar Wilde poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” typifies the Vi...
In 1854, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born to Sir Robert Wills Wilde and Jane Francesca Wilde in Dublin, Ireland. Sir Wilde was a renowned surgeon who had been knighted for his medical service. His title was non-hereditary. Oscar Wilde’s mother wrote under the name Speranza and advocated liberal causes including ardent support for Irish Nationalism.
Playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland (Wright 54). He was the son of two very talented parents. His father, Sir William Ralph Wills Wilde, was a leading eye and ear surgeon, scholar, and noted archeologist. His mother, Jean Francesca Elgee, wrote passionate nationalistic articles for the radical newspaper, The Nation (Wright 54). Although Wilde did not do well in school, he loved the classics and found a passion for writing. He began writing plays, essays, a novel, and many short stories, becoming