Importance Of Being Earnest: Irony

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Is He Serious? The Importance Of Being Earnest is a story of irony, the title itself is a pun. To be earnest means: to be honest or sincere, and everyone is lying stating their name is Ernest… how ironic. Many times writers embed irony into a story, like a Christ figure causing harm to someone, or the buckle up it saves lives sign falling onto someone who crashed into it killing them while wearing their seatbelt;but Wilde took irony to a whole new level. Not only did he use irony in the whole plot of the play he also placed it rather sneakily within many parts of the play. Irony is a great method for evoking humor within a story, it acts as an inside joke between the author and the reader; Wilde uses irony to his advantage to entertain the reader. …show more content…

Earlier during the play Jack states that he has a brother in the city, and uses this to justify his travel into the city. Later Algeron pretends to be Jacks brother so that he can win over Cecily, Jack niece. Towards the end of the play Jack realises that he is actually related to Algernon, and Jack states "Algy’s elder brother! Then I have a brother after all. I knew I had a brother! I always said I had a brother! Cecily- how could you have ever doubted that I had a brother."(PNTH) Seems ironic that Algernon played Jacks brother, in order to play a mind game with Cecily when if fact he was actually Jacks

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