Gender and Consistency in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

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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.

This play brings out the differences between the upper class to that of the middle class and lower class people. Moreover, the characters’ follies and foolishness lies at the core of this drama. Deceit and lies, love and marriage are also some major themes in this drama. There are three acts in this drama, all interlinked with each other. The first act of this drama introduces us to the main characters, their complications and sufferings. There are more complications in the second act. These complications lead the plot to its climax and finally the happy conclusion in the final act. The plot of this play is based on inconsistent actions, unbelievable characters and coincidences. The plot is compact and closely knit but the audiences appreciate the play not because of its unity of scenes but due to the art of characterization employed in the play by Wilde.

Dramatic Personae or c...

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