The Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde

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

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

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.

Webster's dictionary defines earnest as “characterized by or proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind". Which can be considered a pun since thought this play we see the characters being more apathetic. The Importance of Being Earnest is the story of Jack Worthing is the main character and the protagonist of this play. He is a well of business man who lives in the country and is very well respected there. But Jack has a secret he lives another in the city of London where he claims to go to take care of an irresponsible little brother named Earnest. There he meets a friend Algernon Moncrieff a person who also has created a person named Mr. Bunbury who he goes to the city to see because of him being on his deathbed. Through these

Wyndham Lewis recognizes, “Wherever there is objective truth, there is satire.” Most readers don't recognize this until they feel insulted, mostly due to the fact that humans don’t acknowledge their lifestyle flaws until others make them known. This concept has come to be the brick and mortar of the wry play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson showcase the Victorian era. With memorable characters like Aunt Augusta, accustomed to tea time and addicted to her cucumber sandwiches, and the loveable Dr. Jekyll, driven by his own devilish work, one is almost able to hear the trotting of horses with carriages on cobblestone streets. While the thought of high society and misty mornings is appealing, both works of literature are also used to convey the ludicrousness of Victorian society. Whether it is Algernon or Jack bunburying in the country or Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into the detestable Mr. Hyde, each one has found a need to create a separate entity from themselves due to societal pressures. Wilde’s lighthearted mockery of the things central to society, such as class struggle and marriage, and his deliberate focus on things less meaningful, like cucumber sandwiches, adds a much more serious tone to his play in modern society than Stevenson, who uses graphic images and internal struggle to convey his thoughts on society and encourage reader introspection.

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

In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, two gentlemen exemplify the result of dishonesty and hypocrisy. Set in Victorian England, the two bachelors, Algernon and Jack, fight over which one of them will take the name Ernest in order to win their own girl. Wilde circumvents conventionalism and employs superior satirical strategy to not only teach the importance of being earnest, a characteristic held dear by Victorian society, but he also chastises his world for the hypocrisy between man and woman and between upper and lower classes.

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.”

A satire is a genre of literature that uses humour, irony, and/or exaggeration to criticize or show a character’s stupidity or vices. In this case, the literature is a play by Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedic, satirical play that shows ridicule and mockery of the characters through the use of repetitions and parallels to ultimately show the real meaning of being earnest. Wilde’s play is a satirical play because two important characters named Algernon and Jack are living double lives under the same identity. The two characters live double lives in order to escape from reality and live life with no responsibilities. Although, in the end the two characters are caught and live more fulfilling lives under their christian names. This act of living a double life is a repetition presented throughout the play. Another action that is in the play which is linked to parallels, is Gwendolen and Cecily. Gwendolen and Cecily are parallels in that they say similar lines throughout the play and they both will only fall in love with a man named Ernest. The last idea that is linked with repetition is the marriage between Algernon and Cecily and the marriage between Jack and Gwendolen. Wilde’s play is a satisfactory example of a satire because of the irony, repetitions, and foils of each character.

In The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde revealed that animalistic traits can tint a character’s intellectual attributes. All of the characters possess an overwhelming desire which seems to diminish their morality. Wilde uses Jack Worthing’s animalistic behaviors to reveal that his animal self is damaging his intellectual self. The play is presented to show that the characters retain an exaggerated pleasure with food, which shows their pleasures in inanimate objects. Every character in the play is drawn into lustful relationships, thus mutilating their psychological self. By embracing their animalistic traits the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest begin to blemish their intellectual character which inhibits their overall

An exuberant nonconformist and controversial playwright, eminent author Oscar Wilde produced critically acclaimed literary works that defined the essence of late Victorian England. Posthumously recognized for his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and satiric comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde initially acquired criticism for his immoral and unconventional style of writing. Additionally, to his dismay, strife followed Wilde in his personal life as he was notoriously tried and incarcerated on allegations of “gross indecency” (homosexuality). Emotionally depleted post-imprisonment and stricken with poverty, Wilde was diagnosed with meningitis and died soon thereafter at the ripe age of 46.

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

The title of the book seems to emphasize the word “Earnest” by describing it as something important. After reading through the play by Oscar Wilde, the title seems to perfectly match with the content and plot described in the book, since it shows the irony behind the title of the importance of being earnest, and the made-up character “Ernest” himself. Jack’s double, Ernest, is a made up character who Jack can transform into in order to be another version of himself. When Jack is residing in the countryside at his manor in Hertfordshire, he is Jack, his true identity, but when his is in town in London, he transforms into his brother who is named Ernest. Gwendolen and Cecily, two young ladies that fell in love with Ernest, seem to be only in love with this character because of his “name”. Even at the end of the book when Gwendolen found out that Jack’s real name wasn’t Ernest, she didn’t want him for a small period of time because his name wasn’t Ernest, upsetting her. At the end of the Act 3, when Jack got introduced to his name, Ernest, which was a name given to him all along, Gwendolen seemed to have forgiven him in an instant since his name was Ernest after all, and she knew she would only fall in love with a man named Ernest. This imaginative character symbolizes the small value of respect that the Victorian Society shows for ideals such as honesty, responsibility, and compassion. Instead, ideals such as class, money, and status within the hierarchy of society seem

Wilde uses absurd humor in The Importance of Being Earnest to undercut some societal establishments and highlight the lengths people will go to have an alibi. He pokes fun at the institutions of his time; many of the issues he jokes about are still relevant–or at the least, easily understood–by a contemporary audience. Jack announces that he has come to town to propose to Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen, and Algernon remarks “I thought you had come up for pleasure?…I call that business” (888). He goes on to say that there is nothing romantic about proposing–it is more like business than love–and that if he is ever married he will “certainly try to forget the fact” (888). The play also subverts the idea that social standing is directly related to moral quality: “Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility” (888). This plays on the idea that the higher classes, and those