Oscar Wilde Sexuality

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is truly a satire. In The Importance of Being Ernest, Wilde mocks the society in Britain, and the rules it followed in the 1800s. He uses satire in the description of every character and other themes like marriage, intelligence, morality, and lifestyle primarily aimed at the upper class of the time. At the turn of every page the use of satire proves again and again to be ideal when questioning the morals and values of people.

Throughout much of the play and especially the beginning, Wilde satirizes the setting in which both the characters as well as his audience live in. This satirization specifically requires that the audience be thoughtful whenever Wilde makes a joke, resulting in the thoughtful laughter which makes a true comedy. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is set during the late 20th century in Britain, a time period known as the Victorian Era, in which the British Empire was at its absolute peak. The dominance of Britain in world affairs resulted in a sense of

In the play, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, there is a lot of humor that can be found. Specifically, developed behind the characters in this play that display many instances of irony and how important it was to fit into the “status quo” of this time period. There are specific behaviors from the characters of Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen, and Algernon that portray Wilde’s opinion of society during the Victorian Age. The attitude of these characters is snobbish and their manners display double standards and superiority. The play’s use of mockery and irony of these satirical situations is meant to publicly ridicule the self- loving attitude of the upper class while exposing their true absence of intelligence which causes their absurd social behaviors

    "I turned half way around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself" (7). During the Victorian era, this was a dangerous quote. The Victorian era was about progress. It was an attempt aimed at cleaning up the society and setting a moral standard. The Victorian era was a time of relative peace and economic stability (Marshall 783). Victorians did not want anything "unclean" or "unacceptable" to interfere with their idea of perfection. Therefore, this quote, taken from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray,

Elinor Fuchs sees the play as a world that passes in front of the critic in ‘time and space’; one that has elements that must be understood (Fuchs, 2004, p 6). These elements closely resembles Aristotle’s six elements of a play- plot, character, thought, diction, music and spectacle- elements that are clearly identifiable in Oscar Wilde’s 1895 play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.

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.

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.

Oscar Wilde's, "The Importance of Being Earnest" revolves around the dichotomy of the true definition of honesty versus the victorian definition of honesty. It is apparent that Wilde's opinion is that true honesty is expressed through being genuine to one's self as opposed to putting on a front as is important in victorian ideals. In this work, Wilde uses humor to off-set the seriousness of the theme of the story. One who has studied this work can also clearly see that Wilde is using sarcasm to say things that would not have been accepted by society if they were said bluntly. For example he exemplifies in a very sarcastic manner the hypocracy that victorian society represents by the very fact that they pretend to uphold honesty above all

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

Societal Standards in The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde was an extraterrestrial figure in a world accustomed to normality and invariability. Wilde was a homosexual in a time period where such behavior was not tolerated by any means. He was arrested a year after writing The Importance of Being Earnest on charges of indecency, with the fact of his homosexuality in mind (Staff). Funnily enough, The Importance of Being Earnest was a well liked play in the time area, even though it was fraught with “unseemly” behaviors in regards to the sexes. In the Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde dares to convey a message of resistance against social norms while criticizing the social hierarchy through the display of an utterly absurd societal crisis.

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 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

    In spite of the novel's heterosexual text, many critics agree that it has various homosexual elements in its characters, in the dialogues, and even in the portrait itself. One of the critics, Richard Dellamora, mentions this feature of the text, and comments that "By definition this context is heterosexual. Wotton is married and pursues actresses. Basil himself is a graduate of Oxford, a well-established artist, and respectable to a fault" (28). However, he also remarks the intensity of male friendships, and referring to Basil, he continues "Later, he repeatedly enjoins Dorian to conformity. Both older men live in a network of male friendships that ramify through the novel "

Being one of the most famous plays written by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest is a romantic comedy that makes good use of the conflicts of characters to deal with themes such as marriage, social class and hypocrisy. There are two different types of conflict to drive plot and capture audience attention in a story: internal and external conflict. The former concerns a character’s emotional, moral or ideological dilemma within his own mind; the latter concerns a character’s struggle against an opposing view from another character, society or the nature. In fact, in The Importance of Being Earnest, by increasing the story’s tension and enhancing character development, the internal and external conflicts of Jack Worthing contribute

The Importance of Being Earnest is a satirical play written in 1895 by renowned author Oscar Wilde. This play has been reviewed by many critics, two of which being John Drinkwater and Bernard Shaw. Drinkwater views Wilde’s plot as a masterpiece, in the sense that it has a way to captivate the audience using passion; however, Bernard Shaw has his own harsh views on the way the whole storyline is weak and needs a lot of improvement.