Food as an Important Symbol in the Importance of Being Earnest

In the Importance of being Earnest, food seems to be an example of greed a n impatience. For example in act I Algernon eats all of the cucumber sandwiches he waits for his aunt without admitting that he has eaten all of them. That is greedy because he could not let jack eat the cucumber sandwiches, and it is impatient because he would not wait for his aunt to get there to eat the sandwiches. Wilde satirizes society by metaphorically saying that we as a society during this time is starting to become more greedy and impatient.

In my opinion, the key theme of this play is tyranny. How is tyranny exerted by a small group that is able to manipulate the situation for their own ends? One clear example is how the court arrests many people on the word of the girls alone. Contrastingly, Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor are shining examples of people who insist on the truth, regardless of the

In “Young Hunger”, M.F.K Fisher uses food to express her lack of attention and love. For Fisher food represents comfort and helps her deal with her problems. Food is one of our three basic needs along with security and love. When Fisher writes about food she is actually writing about the hunger for love, being misunderstood by her godparents, and dealing with her problems with food. Fisher writes, “It was simply that [ her godparents] were old and sedentary and quite out of the habit of eating amply with younger people” (284).

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” is a memorable story, by Herman Melville, that is able to keep its readers captivated from beginning to end. How does the author successfully grab the attention of his readers? The author utilized his masterful command of the English language to convey the characters, setting, and plot effectively; and in the midst of all the detailed descriptions Melville have used food and the action of eating as powerful symbols. In the story three of the characters have names that are associated with food, and the main character of study, Bartleby, eventually dies of starvation by choice. Given the setting of the story was in the onset of the second industrial revolution, the coming of the big corporations where Wall

The story has many moments where characters are faced with some sort of thing they are annoyed and/or stressed about, however in the play they mostly result to eating over anything else. There are quite a bit of these moments lurking around within the play as the characters face more of these issues, and use food as a symbol.

The food is important because the food is laughed at because of its name. This is a physical need because the character was hungry and she needed to eat. Second reason for eating that is shown in the movie is a social need. A social need includes celebrations, gathering, customs, or special occasions.

Lady Bracknell’s character represents the “New Woman” and clearly Algernon has to overcome any obstacle to please her. Lane, as the servant, a lower class citizen, acknowledges the hierarchy and aids Algernon in response. Wilde also wrote the scene where Algernon eats the entire plate of cucumber sandwiches as a sign of rebellion against the supreme woman figure. Algernon feared the consequences, and as a result concealed the truth. The cucumber sandwiches symbolize the need to be accepted within society and its commodities. Wilde devises the cucumber sandwich discussion to provide insight regarding the power shift from men to women at this time.

In two passages of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, she describes a party at 124. Everyone become so full from the food that flows endlessly that they become angry at Baby Suggs extravagance. Baby Suggs thinks it was this overfullness that caused them all to not notice the coming of Schoolteacher and his sons. The narrator of one passage is Stamp Paid and he recounts to Paul D. what happened at the party – what they ate and how it made everyone feel.

Oliver Parker’s (2002) film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is sadly completely consumed by the romantic comedy style, masking Wilde’s key concerns and detracting from important comic elements of the play. This can be observed through the varying representations of characters, the film’s lack of contextual jokes, the more prominent sub-plot between Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism, the addition of music and the way in which dialogue, while remaining true to the play, has lost meaning in the film.

Wilde uses Gwendolen’s and Cecily’s obviously superficial affection towards each other to again accentuate and criticize the importance that the Victorian’s placed on an individual’s name. The practice of naming others as a means to display one’s own dominance is satirized by the irony in the argument between the two young ladies. The audience detects that they are undoubtedly fighting over Ernest as well as superiority, but their true feelings are ironically hidden (rather poorly) under fake earnestness. Garland states that, “both women attempt to define the existence of their opponent through rapidly shifting expression of Identity” (272), and cause a quiet fire in the atmosphere of the scene. Since their fight is so indirect and blatantly petty, Wilde is able to comically criticize females of victorian society that are represented by Gwendolen and Cecily.

Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest (.1993.) is an enlightening epitome of social class in the Victorian era. The satire is driven by the frivolous behaviour, superficial lives and artificial norms within the Victorian aristocracy. Incorporating his own opinion into the play, Wilde continually attacked and mocked their hypocrisy, views on marriage, and their mannerisms. Throughout the play, Wilde used an abundant range of literary techniques to reinforce his opinion. Irony, paradox and hyperboles, as well as witty epigrams and aphorisms were used astutely and were ubiquitous throughout the play. This contributed to the satirical style and tone of the text, and enabled Wilde to effectively communicate his critical perspective on social class in Victorian England.

Miss Prism also represents the dichotomy and somewhat relates to Cecily. In the fact that she acts in the manner a respectable victorian woman should, she is secretly (or so she thinks, though it is apparent to others) buring with passion for Rev. Chasuble. While around him she acts mannerly and as if she has no intrest in

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, premiered in London in 1895 when Wilde was in the peak of his career. During this time of the Victorian Era, society was very moral and chaste, at least on the surface. There was a very specific code of behavior that governed almost everything, but focused mainly on the topic of marriage. This affected Wilde first-hand as he was married to a woman but also involved with men which was forbidden at the time. Using the themes of dualism and marriage, Wilde is trying to show the audience the ridiculous nature of Victorian society. Through the reoccurring theme of dualism, Oscar Wilde uses sizable amounts of satire to not only mock the trivial Victorian society, but more specifically to ridicule

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)

The use of the fruit as a motive fit into the theme of the forbidden as the Duchess eats the apricots which forces her into pregnancy. In the quotation “How greedily she eats them!” with the use of the exclamatory sentence it suggests that the Duchess is enjoying the forbiddance within the fruit which ends up leading her to a big problem. It foreshadows the future events due to the fact that during the 16th century it was believed that apricots are what caused labour and this play supports this as the Duchess went into labour straight after eating the apricots. It shows that the Duchess wasn’t able to recognise the risk of the fruit, but the enjoyment of the fruit is what lead her to carry on eating. The Duchess seems to be chasing after the forbiddance within things and to explore them. However, this is what causes the death of others as she is wanted to