Being Earnest: The Importance Of Social Class

In the book the word earnest is being used as a pun by the character Jack Worthing. Although the word earnest means to be truthful, Jack is doing the exact opposite by using the name Earnest, pretending to be his little brother. No one in the play seems to truly be earnest, as even Algernon pretends to be his non existent friend, Bunbury. The significance of “being earnest” is that both Algernon and Jack’s loves had their minds set on getting married to a man named Earnest. “Being Earnest” was especially important to Jack because it was his birthright.

Social class is a “tag” to define your status in a community. One of the main requirements you must have to be in the Upper class, is to have wealth and power. That is basically it, and obviously the absence of those characteristics could mean you are in a Middle or even in the Lower class. Sports are an activity that people do for pleasure that requires physical activity and sometimes has rules for the players to follow in order to play the game. It is most commonly played outdoors. It can improve your cardio, health, and physical condition. For example, it can prevent things like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer or even mental illnesses like depression.

An inequality in society, economy, wealth distribution, and political corruption and the influence in cooperation of government led to

A person’s name and position in society are significantly important for the upper class, due to the fact that if one were to marry into the family, a key member of the family would judge the person by their social class and the family name they carry to see if they are worthy to being a part of their lineage. In the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a person's social class is highly admired. The main characters are high in society and are falsely appearing to live up to great expectations. In Oscar Wilde’s play, the theme of the social class is extensively explored through the characters, although they are living double-lives.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, is a story in which the attitude and dialogue simply distinguishes each character for who they truly are. Additionally, the key setting of The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around the idea of deception. Throughout the story, the characters begin to unveil their actual backgrounds after committing the act of telling a variety of lies. Correspondingly, in this victorian era society the character live in, it is ingrained in the minds of individuals that marriage has everything to do with status; or in this case, the name. One character in particular that caught my attention was Algernon Moncrieff. I believe this because through the use of deception, Wilde manages to contribute to the work as a whole through his bravado attitude, comedic relief, and the honest threaded into his lies.

The Importance of Being Earnest is about a man named Jack Worthing who works several jobs in his town servicing other people. For many years, Jack has pretended to have a brother named Ernest who is supposedly off living a life on the edge on the pursuit of happiness, while managing to get into constant trouble. What Jack’s community doesn’t know, is that Ernest is just a made up person whom Jack uses as an excuse to leave work anytime he wants and to visit his lover Gwendolen. In the beginning, no one else knows that Ernest is actually Jack’s secret identity, until later in the play when Jack meets Algernon, who becomes

The play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde is set in England during the late 19th century during the rule of Queen Victoria and features two bachelors, Algernon Moncrieff and John Worthing, and their struggle to impress the women they want to marry while remaining their true selves. Wilde presents the theme of superficiality through the approach to names in the play and the importance of appearances. (or looks? Gwen and Cecily fight plus dandy).

The play, The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Oscar Wilde is about two young gentlemen named Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who have taken on imaginative alter egos. Jack Worthing pretended to be his younger brother, Ernest, in order to leave his boring life in the country, and to propose to Gwendolyn Fairfax. Algernon Moncrieff also takes on the name, Ernest, in order to meet Jack Worthing’s young and pretty ward, Cecily Cardew. Things begin to take a turn for the worst when Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff run into each other at Jack Worthing’s estate in the country and their deceptive schemes are discovered.

Every line, every character, and every stage direction in The Importance of Being Earnest is set on supporting Oscar Wilde’s want for social change. The Importance of Being Earnest was written during the late period of the Victorian era. During this period social classification was taken very seriously. It could affect working and living conditions, education, religion, and marriage. Wilde explores the issues of social class and turns it into a comedic play. He humorously criticizes Victorian manners and attacking the society of the luxurious life. The audience becomes self-aware as the characters reflect on themselves. Plays such as this become successful because of the backgrounds the writers come from and the experiences they have had.

In the novel, The Importance of Being Earnest, the author, Oscar Wilde, mainly focuses on critiquing social expectations, family history, and the importance of names. In the novel, Wilde tells the novel as the protagonist, Jack Worthington, needing to put together a well constructed lie, which involves him lying about his name being Ernest. Therefore, Jack must put together a well constructed lie in order for him to marry the who he loves, Gwendolen. Gwendolen believes that the respectable name of Ernest for a husband is important to her and if his name is not Ernest, then their love will not succeed. Gwendolen also believes in appearances, upper-class snobbery, and correct behavior.

The Importance of Being Earnest is set in late Victorian England, a time of social reform. Society was rediscovering art in its many forms yet as a consequence, The Upper class continued their program of suppressed inferiority. The lower classes were treated with disdain and disgust and the animosity between the groups was easily visible. Essentially, the late Victorian era was the beginning of a mini cultural renaissance, yet Upper Class society, which forms the basis of the play was rigidly controlled by a set of unwritten rules, a code of conduct as it may, in which all were expected to conform with. This code referred to a number of things, including the way they ate, dressed, and spoke. The 19th

Behind every great story there is always a well written plot and even greater characters. The Importance of Being Earnest is filled with dynamic characters that add intensity and symbolism to the plot. Without characters such as Gwendolen, Cecily, and Lady Bracknell, the twist and turns of the play would not have been possible. All characters in a play are important, but there is always a main character or protagonist that the story could not exist without. This play has two important protagonist, John “Jack” Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff. Algernon and Jack not only have character traits in common but their actions and what they symbolized are very similar also.

The relationship between Jack and Gwendolen undergoes a parody. Gwendolen laughs when Jack asks how she might feel if his name is not Earnest. "Ah, that is clearly a metaphysical speculation", she says, "and like all metaphysical speculation, has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them."(18) This remark of Gwendolen exactly fits the general theme of the play, but in fact the joke is directed to her. Yet at the end of the play, Gwendolen's conviction that she will marry an Earnest and her faith in the name are justified- we understand that Jack's true name is Earnest. The effect

The The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Oscar Wilde, is a play set during the Victorian Era. It is about the lives of characters named Jack Worthing, Algernon Moncrieff, Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax, Cecily Cardew, Miss Prism, and Rev. Chasuble that lived during that time period. One of the main topics discussed in The Importance of Being Earnest is marriage. Overall, Wilde portrays marriage differently throughout the play for the upper and lower classes of society.

Earnestness, which implies seriousness or sincerity, is the great enemy of morality in The Importance of Being Earnest. Earnestness can take many forms, including boringness, solemnity, pomposity, complacency, smugness, self-righteousness, and sense of duty, all of which Wilde saw as hallmarks of the Victorian character. When characters in the play use the word serious, they tend to mean “trivial,” and vice versa. For example, Algernon thinks it “shallow” for people not to be “serious” about meals, and Gwendolen believes, “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”