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Essays about the book the importance of being earnest
In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, the female characters do not conform to traditional gender roles’
Critical summary of the essay the importance of being earnest
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Oscar Wildes ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’’ is believed by many to be his most genius work and certainly has withstood the test of time. The play is set in London during the 1890’s in which time frame aristocracy and upper class held the majority of the countries wealth. Many of the comical aspects question the morals of the upper class in which he satirises throughout the play. One method of this, for instance is through one of the main protagonist, Algernon Moncrieff. Algernon is an upper class individual who is oblivious to the world around him in such an exaggerated manner that it makes his character comically adjusted for Wildes own views. Many aspects of the time period are made a mockery through puns and witty remarks from the …show more content…
We know that they fear the lower class becoming aware of their lavish ways, for example, Lady Bracknell is clearly afraid of education for the poor “Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.” Lady Bracknell is one of the characters Wilde created that has an immense amount of ignorance and seems to be aware of it. She is not only one of the most ignorant characters, but also the most morally corrupted which is a theme that runs strong throughout. We see examples of this when she is interrogating Jack in Act one, everything is going well until jack mentions he was found in a handbag and does not come from a powerful background. 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
The Importance of Being Earnest, a farcical satire written by Oscar Wilde in 1895, is a play that aims to point out the absurdity and hypocrisy of Victorian culture while, of course, making the audience laugh. It achieves this goal thanks to an assortment of bizarre yet dynamic characters. Easily the most intriguing of these characters is Algernon Moncrieff, a wealthy, narcissistic socialite who is friends with the main protagonist, Jack Worthing. Algernon makes the play much more entertaining with his witty dialogue and unique views on life and society, but what makes him the most interesting character of all is his role in the play from a literary analysis perspective. Algernon fits the description of the “dandy” archetype that is common
A prominent theme in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is the question of earnestness or sincerity. At the core of the play’s exploration of earnestness is the playwright’s social criticism for the substitution of moral values for aesthetic values. Wilde pokes fun at the notion of morality as a set rules dictating what people should and shouldn’t do. For Wilde, “earnestness” contains false morality as well as false truth. It is for this reason that Wilde makes a point to contrast his two male leads. John (Jack) Worthing’s insincerity is primarily self-serving and therefore amoral, whereas Algernon (Algy) Moncrieff’s insincerity is to be viewed as a positive form of creative expression.
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.
Wilde “awoke laughter” in The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde showed rather than falling in love because you actually liked a person, the people of the Victorian Era fell in love solely on minute details such as physical features, a person’s name, or how much wealth they had. The comedy comes into play when Wilde pokes fun at the process of falling in love, because the characters rush falling in love with the right person, the audience compares the character’s reality with the world’s reality.
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.
Satire in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a play by Oscar Wilde, set in the late 1800's. His actors are playing upper class citizens who are very self-absorbed. The play is set amongst upper class, wealthy people. They appear not to work and are concerned with their own pleasure.
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 play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is full of irony. Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, the protagonists in the play, get themselves into a complicated situation called Bunburyism (as Algernon refers to it). They pretend to be someone that they are not to escape their daily lives. They lie to the women they admire and eventually the truth is unveiled.
Oscar Wilde is the brilliant dramatist of the Victorian age in England. Akin to Shakespeare, Dickens and many others who worked in this field, his talent was unique in terms of self-expressions through different literary styles. Of course, the aesthetic manner of Wilde’s literature (as common to think as his highest achievement) has been already flourished earlier in the outstanding prose, but the innovative playwriting such as The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) shows the infinite origin of author’s ideas. And this one was an exception within the others, because throughout the play Wild draws the higher society in the most unattractive way. “ Trivial comedy for the serious people” is the epigraph of the book, which addresses its meaning certainly to the heart of the public author knew very-well. Therefore, the most beloved characters of his previous dramas like dandies appear now to be the objects of cruel mocking. In the page 4, Algernon pronounces the phrase with the laughing tone in response to Jack’s explanation of why he is going to propose to Gwendolen, and Algy says ‘“Divorces are made in heaven”’ (Wilde, 1895, p. 4). Why Algernon has changed this widely used expression about the marriage? How this represents the point of view of other protagonists? And, what is it: a witty wordplay or a worldview?
Oscar Wilde ridiculed the institution of marriage. Throughout the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, there is a pessimistic view on marriage. In many lines, Wilde made a mockery of the most sacred tradition; marriage. The hypocritical custom and traditions were also mocked. Marriage is the plot’s main core, where the two young men desire to marry two young women, who in return desire to marry men named Ernest. Wilde poked fun at the aristocrats by using marriage for mainly two reasons. One it is a traditionally sacred ceremony, and two, he can emphasize the importance of wealth and status among the upper class. Marriages, among the aristocrats, were viewed as a financial contract.
All in all Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ preserves its comedic appeal to an ever changing contemporary audience despite the fact it was written in the Victorian era. The use of literacy devices and satirical techniques exhibits the themes of marriage, death and the use of the word earnest and how it correlates to the play showcase the satirical craftsmanship of his epigram and with this proves that this renowned piece of literature sparked uproar during 19th century Britain which preserved the Irish born playwright as one of the greatest.
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 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.
In final analysis, it is unfair to suggest that The Importance of Being Earnest is a shallow farce which has no ties to the historical context in which it was created; however, Wilde's references to the crucial issues of his time are usually overshadowed by his characters' own petty concerns, leaving the criticism an anticlimax that is easily ignored. The overwhelming evidence points to the play being an intricate and undeniably clever evaluation of Victorian life which leads me to be unable to agree with Archer in that The Importance of Being Earnest has no substance or moral point in nearly any way whatsoever.
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.