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)
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 characters Lady Bracknell’s and Al...
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... invent these fictitious alter egos so they are able to escape the restraints of propriety. However, different members of the society have different viewpoints of what is decent and what is not. A paradox within the play is the impossibility of being earnest and moral within the society. The characters who embrace triviality and wickedness are the ones who may have the greatest chance of attaining virtue.
Works Cited
• Baraka, Amiri. "The Dutchman." Stages of Drama. Fifth ed. Boston/ New York
Bedford/ St. Martins, 2003. 1086-093
• Baraka, Amiri. "The Myth of 'Negro Literature'." Within the Circle. Ed. Angelyn
Mitchell. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1994. 165-171.
• Rice, Julian C. "Leroi Jones' "Dutchman": A Reading." jstor.org. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207453
“I’ve now realized for the first time in my life, the vital importance of being Earnest. (713.521-523) Jack’s final line demonstrates his understanding of the secret meaning behind “The Importance of Being Earnest”, by Oscar Wilde. That human beings have the capacity to be both good and evil. This is shown through the character of Jack, other character’s relation to Jack, and even in the theatrical elements of the show.
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.
Similarly, in “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Jack and Algernon both begin their marital lives based on deception and lies. As a matter of fact, Gwendolen and Algernon both know Jack as Ernest. When Jack proposes to Gwendolen, she becomes overly attached to the idea of marrying someone called Ernest. Gwendolen exclaims: “My ideal has always been to love someone of the name Ernest/There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence/It is a divine name/It has a music of its own/It produces vibrations” (Wilde 106), and Cecily is of the same opinion “it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love someone whose name was Ernest/I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest” (Wilde 116). Jack and Algernon never admits to Gwendolen and Cecily that they are living a double life, their relationships are based on lies. They are more occupied with the name Ernest than the fact of actually being earnest. In spite of leading a deceptive and double life, both men
Baselga, Mariano. “Oscar Wilde: The Satire of Social Habits.” In Rediscovering Oscar Wilde, England: Colin Smuthe, 1994: pp. 13-20.
Gwendolen confesses to Jack, or his confidante Ernest, “The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you” (10). That quote proved that Gwendolen’s drive to marry “Ernest” for him having the name Ernest, rather than marrying him for his character. Cecily also confesses something along the same lines as Gwendolen to Algernon, that even though she had never met him before she fell in love with him: “Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation…a man who is much talked about is always very attractive…I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest” (32). She is led to believe that Algernon’s real name is Ernest. Cecily and Gwendolen are attracted to Jack and “Ernest” because of their histories. Gwendolen was excited to find o...
middle of paper ... ... heir comments. Just after both of their proposals, they each comment that they would never marry anyone whose name was not Ernest. Aside from being totally ironic, this is also very shameful. The girls place the importance of their engagement a name, rather than love.
Gwendolen and Cecily act like air-heads and are easily won over by the men they plan to marry. Gwendolen simply wants to marry a man named Earnest. She tells Jack “my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest” (I.381-82). The mere idea of marrying a man for his name shows how easily Gwendolen can attach herself to a man. Marriage is the most serious of all relationships and Gwendolen is foolish to deter...
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 film, The Importance of Being Earnest, is a comical and dramatized adaptation of the play version written by Oscar Wilde. Although it included things that were not introduced in the play, it only made it more humorous. The film, although with extra-add ins for humor, was a well-planned and thought out interpretation of the play version. With the extra add-ins, it better explains what is going on so viewers won’t have to refer to the play to understand. Watching the film never failed to have me cracking up and wanting more.
Two of the main characters, Jack and Algernon, strive to be "Ernest" and "Earnest" in the play, yet they both deceive others to escape lives which they grow tired of. They both hope to marry the girls that they love, yet they are starting the relationship based on false pretence and lies. It is ironic that they both call themselves "Ernest," a name that suggests honesty and sincerity, yet they both create stories to escape something or the other. Jack creates a brother called "Ernest" in the city that he uses as a scape goat' to leave his prim and proper, respectable country life, whereas Algernon creates a friend by the name of "Bunbury" to escape his aunt's high class society parties. He shows his lack of interest in such social events when he tells Jack.
The Victorians think of the concept of love and marriage as a game, an idea that is silly and unimportant. Algernon is in the midst of ridiculing jack on his decision to marry Gwendolen, then proceeds to tell him the only way to behave with women, ¨… make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.¨ 137. having no interest in marriage whatsoever Algernon takes every opportunity to mock Jack's decision to his engagement. Not only does he contempt marriage, but he euphemistically states that the only relations anyone should have with women are that of sex. While in the middle of proposing Gwendolen interrupts, ¨… I am
Wilde presents marriage as a state that is accepted in its superficiality. Lady Bracknell states’ ‘when you do become engaged to someone, I, or your father… will inform you of the fact’’. This statement exemplifies the typecast of a firm Victorian women reinforcing the idea that marriage was a business arrangement,; marriages were understood to be a useful financial and social ‘alliance’ instead of a joint enterprise of love and commitment. Lady Bracknell attempts to impose these illogical concepts from her own generation which are based on traditions and conventions. Wilde conveys this idea of ridiculing
Both Algernon and Jack assume the identity of "Ernest" yet ironically, they both plan on starting their married life with a lie. 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 to be no engagement. Through this major exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the irrational and insignificant matters that the upper class society uses to view