Oscar Wilde Satire Analysis

Gwendolyn and Cecily act as friends until they learn that they are supposedly engaged to the same person. Then they learn neither of them are engaged to anybody named Ernest, and are friends again. In act three, we discover Jacks history, including that he is Algernon's elder brother. In the end, despite several lies, arguments, and much turmoil, everybody gets married.

In The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde portrays a relationship between two men, Algernon and Jack, which is filled with constant arguing and disagreement. Their first dispute over a cigarette case is presented early in act one, leaving the reader with a lasting impression of the flaws in their relationship. Algernon and Jack disagree over who holds ownership over the cigarette case leading Algernon to remark “I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say” (Wilde 462). Being that both of these men are members of the upper class, the case clearly does not have true monetary value to them except to use an a manipulating factor. Algernon eventually trades the case in order to receive an explanation from Jack about why he is “Earnest in the town and Jack in the country” (464). The trivial nature of this strife shows the weak bond between Algernon and Jack. This weakness is reinforced when Jack and Algernon meet again in the middle of the play. After returning from town, Jack finds Algernon at his house and is forced to listen to Algernon lie about being his brother. In response, Jack says “nothing will induce me to take his hand. I think his coming down here disgraceful. He knows perfectly well why” (498). This is another example showing the poor relationship between Algernon and Jack. Jack’s distrust of Algernon due to his habitual lying goes hand in hand with several of their disagreements, further preventing a successful friendship between them.

Algernon’s stances on marriage, relationships, and self accurately describe his selfishness. Not only does Algernon destroy his own sense of reality, he destroys everyone else’s concept of the truth. The Importance of Being Earnest is meant to make people laugh; unfortunately, Wilde’s characters are so rude and condescending that the reader can have trouble finding the humor. This play is so full of unhealthy relationships that one has to assume that nothing will work out in the end. Algernon is an egomaniac, and there is no doubt that his attitude will rub off on Cecily, Jack, and

They are presented to within a high class of society, with a lack of consideration or care for the lower classes. Both are bored by their high society lives and “stiff” lunches/meetings that they must attend, so have created alter egos which they use to have fun in a different place. Algernon has invented a sick friend called Bunbury, who he sometimes must spend long lengths of time “looking after”, and when in the country, Jack becomes Ernest.

One way the theme of superficiality is displayed in the play is through how names are viewed and valued by the characters. In the play, both bachelors partake in what Algernon calls ‘Bunburying’ which features them taking on a different name or creating a fictional person in their lives.

Jack illustrates the purpose of deception by using Earnest to escape his role of Cecily’s warden. When Algernon finds Jack’s cigarette case, he is shocked to find the name Jack graven inside. Jack attempts to explain by saying, “[M]y name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country” (Wilde Act I). As Jack, he has to be a responsible adult and take care of his niece Cecily but as Ernest he is able to live the wild life of a young bachelor. By pretending to be Ernest in town, Jack is freed from the restrictions of being a caretaker, yet he still fulfills the duties of one as he resides in the country. While explaining why he has two identities to Algernon, Jack states that being a guardian does not “conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness” (Wilde Act I). Jack has to take care of Cecily, be responsible for her, and set rules and guidelines for her to follow. In his role of guardian, he finds himself unable to have fun, so he creates an irresponsible, carefree

The use of social masks and the act of “bunburying” have a strong correlation within the play. In modern American culture, we use social masks to appear to belong better to the environment where we are. Judging from Earnest, people used these social facades in the same way in Victorian England. Subtler in everyday life, the play exaggerates the switching of these masks to complete and explicit switches of identity: there is Algernon, who goes to the country to care for Bunbury, but the most striking example is Jack, who is Ernest in the city. Jack, in the country, is a responsible man who is a dutiful caretaker to his ward, Cecily. She even makes a comment about it: “Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well,” to which

the characters must create alter-egos to live out the lives they actually enjoy, whilst still being able to keep up appearances and live the life they “ought to.” Except it takes a comedic lighthearted approach to satirize these principles. The main overarching joke of the play is that the fictional character “Ernest” is actually the sincerest version of the person playing him. Algernon and Jack’s “true” selves are the personas they play to fit into victorian society. Both characters only confess their feelings of love whilst under the guise of “Ernest.”

It is a well known phenomenon that many authors' lives are reflected through a character in their work. In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, the double life, or double identity, can be seen as the central metaphor in the play, epitomized in Algernon's creation of "Bunbury" or "Bunburying". As this term is the only fictitious word employed throughout the text, it is crucial to critically analyze not only its use and implications, but more importantly, the character who coins the term; Algernon Moncrieff. In addition, it is also significant to note the marked differences between Algernon and Jack's perceptions of the notion of bunburying, as it further develops Algernon's character within the text. But perhaps the single most

Wilde uses a deceptively flippant tone and irony to criticize the hypocrisy of the upper class in Victorian society in relation to living an earnest life. Earnestness as a virtue was of paramount importance during Victorian Society, with people constantly striving to live an earnest life, that is, a life of honesty and seriousness in intention and purpose. The Victorian society was passionately obsessed with the ideals of earnestness, that individuals in the upper middle class were pressured to go to any lengths to lead such a life, even if it meant a difference between what they said, how they acted in public and what they honestly thought. "My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing

One thing that Jack and Algernon have in common is that they both have these false faces. Algernon’s alter ego Bunbury is a version of himself used in the country but he uses Ernest to marry Cecily. The story deals with Ernest, this immorally imaginary man that both Cecily and Gwendolyn become engaged to, it exemplifies the irony within the name. Most of the irony comes from this character. One of Wilde's satiric targets is romantic and sentimental love, which he ridicules by having the women fall in love with a man because of his name rather than more personal attributes. Gwendolyn said “No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces

In Wilde’s play, Jack leads his peers to believe that he has a brother, Ernest, when Jack is actually “Ernest in the town and Jack in the country”. Algernon also leads his peers to believe he has a friend, Bunbury, who is an invalid that he frequently visits when in all actuality, Bunbury is also not a person and he uses the lie to get out of dinner plans. Jack thinks of ways to get rid of the lie he created by telling people that Ernest died of a “severe chill”, however, his lie is exposed when Algernon is disguised as Ernest and proposes to Cecily and Jack is using the name Ernest to propose to Gwendolen, leading both women to believe they are engaged to the same man. Wilde’s word choice and plot leads the reader to discover that lies catch up to those who tell them.

Jack and Algernon start their friendship with deception and lies. In the beginning of the play, they are alone in the morning-room and the lies, between the two friends, is are brought to the table. They have both been great friends for some time now. Jack visits with Algernon in the city where he goes by the name “Ernest”. He feels that going by a different name will let him live and experience a different lifestyle. When visiting with Algernon, Jack has become very interested in Gwendolen. Jack is expressing his love for Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen, and tells how he wishes to marry her. Before Algernon gives his consent, he wants to know who Cecily is. Cecily is the name engraved on the cigarette

Satire at its Finest Satire is using humor, irony, and exaggeration to expose the truth. Throughout the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde uses satire to reveal the truth about the society he lived in. Satire is used to reveal the nature of marriage, a double life otherwise known as bunburying, and social class. The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around the satire of marriage and acts as a primary force moving the plot along.

Insipid, grey, and restrained - these are the words that come to the minds of most when they think of the Victorian era. Strict social codes of refined sensibilities and austerity dictated the time, and to act unseemly or out of line was synonymous with committing social suicide. Yet, the Victorian era was also a time run rampant with sensationalism, drug use, and promiscuity. The juxtaposition of these conflicting morals lends to a period rife with hypocrisy where nobody practices what they preach, as reflected in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.