The Importance Of Being Earnest Research Paper

The Importance of Being earnest is a comedy with depth, style and intelligence. It is because of these aspects that the play was enjoyed so much by audiences of its time and still enjoyed by modern day audiences. Comedy has remained a centre point of our culture throughout the years, we owe it to playwrights like Oscar Wilde for keeping comedy fresh and setting an example of pushing the boundaries. As comedy has evolved and adapted we have been able to define what eactly a comedy is.

On the surface it appears that comedies are plays that make us laugh. However, it is much more intricate than that simple definition, to understand what comedy is we must understand why it makes us laugh. Most of the time it is because we see others caught in difficult situations, situations that an audience can put themselves in and relate to the reactions of characters. It is the hilarity of the way characters cope with the difficulties that is usually the epicentre of the comedy.

Marriage was most common and this is present in The Importance of being earnest. A celebration ir happy event is a key part of a comedy as it ensures that harmony has been reached and keeps the mood of the play light.

The typical features of a comedy are all positive and are never serious, this is essential as if a playwright takes a comedy too seriously it becomes dull, less of a comedy and more a drama. In Wilde’s play he always remains trivial and never delves too far into the realm of seriousness. Love is often the driving force of a comedy, it encourages foolish behaviour, exposing the foolishness in societies norms gives the comedy relatability and exaggerations of stereotypes gives the play a way to not seem so