“The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde is a satirical play about the absurdity of upper victorian society and their ludicrous beliefs about marriage. One line in particular, spoken near the beginning of the play, really sets the overall attitude for the remainder of it. One of the main characters, Algy, is trying to get information out of another main character, Jack. During their conversation, Jack makes a point to say that he has told the whole truth at that point, pure and simple. Algy, in relation to what exactly the truth is, states that its “rarely pure and never simple” (Wilde, 6). For the rest of the entire play, we experience just how convoluted the lies given by upperclassmen have gotten. A prime example of this statement in action is when Algy finds a cigarette case that has Jack’s name on it and is Jack’s but up until this point Algy has known Jack as Ernest so Algy has no idea whose cigarette case it is. …show more content…
This prompts Algy to practically interrogate Jack and we see Jack dodge the truth every chance he gets up until the point where Algy exhausts all his excuses and forces him to tell the truth about his name and his life in the country where he pretends to be someone he’s not. The truth, is that Jack lies and actually lives two lives, talk about the truth being “hardly simple” (Wilde, 6). Another example is when Algy is pretending to be someone he is not, Earnest, in an attempt to woo a woman. This woman, Cecil, has claimed to have been in contact with and even engaged to the person that Algy is pretending to be. In reality, Cecil wrote herself letters, pretending to be Earnest, creating a sort of creepy imaginary life. Cecil has never even seen Earnest before, the reason she is so obsessed with him is simply because she likes his
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 main social group portrayed in the cartoon “On Satire” by Joe Sacco, published in The Guardian, is the cartoonists. “On Satire” portrays other cartoonists as obnoxious, insensitive cavemen who often cross the line between satire and just outright offensive mockery of the religious beliefs of Muslims. The purpose of the cartoon is to ridicule the black and white way of representation/depiction of all Muslims as terrorists. Also he is aiming to get governments and news outlets to consider ways in which to stop terrorism by understanding where they are coming from instead of just eradicating all Muslims and hoping that terrorism dies with them.
The dramatic ironies in “The Importance of Being Earnest” add to the humor of the play. At the very start of the play, the readers only have limited information about the characters. When Jack visits Algernon in his house, the readers are taken along not knowing any knowledge of the events beforehand. They learn along with Algernon that Jack has a make believe brother whose name is Ernest, and Jack uses Ernest in order to get out of many situations as well as an excuse to not be a proper gentleman at times. Algernon learns that Jack’s real name is not Ernest, but that it is really Jack. However, the readers are given the privilege of knowing Jack’s true name from the very beginning. Then Algernon confesses to his “bunburying,” which is essentially the fact that he has a made up friend who is ill in order that Algernon can use him as an excuse to free himself from unpleasant social scenes. The action continues when Jack becomes engaged to Gwendolen under the false pretenses of the name Ernest. Skipping forward, Algernon visits Jack’s niece, Cecily, at Jack’s house in the countryside. Here is one of the first instances of dramatic ironies. Algernon introduces himself to Cecily as Ernest, Jack’s younger wild brother. The readers know that he is not, and that Ernest is made up in the first place. This creates humor due to the suspension it builds. The reader anticipates when Cecily will find out the truth, and how it will affect her. The plot thickens when Jack announces to Canon Chasuble that his brother Ernest is dead, while at the same time Algernon is pretending to be Ernest at Jack’s home. Once again this creates suspension because the reader has
Algernon Moncreiff on the other hand, lied to get to the coutnry so he could find something more genuine as opposed to the false honesty of the city. Again, one sees the same dichotomy as one would see in Jack. Alge lied to get to Cecily, his true love, which again is genuine. Cecily Cardew has a dichotomous personality as well. On the outside, Cecily appears to be innotcent and very victorian like, which represents the victorian dewfinitionof honesty. However, if one dug a little deeper, they would see that Cecily is much like a female version of a dandy. She has wicked thoughts, which represent her genuine, truly honest self.
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
Effectively ushering change in society or pointing out faults that have existed and gone unnoticed can be a daunting task for any social commentator. Often, blandly protesting grievances or concerns can fall upon deaf ears and change can be slow or non-existent. However some social commentators, such as Jonathan Swift in his pamphlet A Modest Proposal, use clever, targeted, and ironic criticism to bring the social state of Ireland to the attention of indolent aristocrats. He accomplishes such criticism through satire, specifically Juvenanlian satire. Swift’s A Modest Proposal stands as a perfect example of the type of satire that plays upon the audience’s emotion by creating anger concerning the indifference of the voice created. He
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 Oscar Wilde’s dramatic novel “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Act II displays humor that contributes to the novel as a whole as being dramatic irony. The source of humor in Act II is the fake engagement of Cecily and Algernon. Wilde emphasizes the humor in Act II with the use of her fake letters between them, their break up and the irony of her desire to love someone named Ernest. Wilde contributes to the humorous novel in Act II by Cecily’s actions of creating fake love letters involving the romantic relationship that Algernon and Cecily once had.
The concept of truth is very distorted in Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest. All the lies originate within the two main characters, Algernon and Jack. It is in act I that we learn the main plot of the play. Jack, an upper-class gentleman from London leads a double life in the countryside. Algernon, who also has a second identity, finds out about this lie and it is at this point that the idea of blackmail becomes essential in the play.
Oscar Wilde’s play entitled “The Importance of Being Earnest” illustrates the concept of dual personality, fantasy, love, and lies. Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn, and Cecily all live in lies. They are manipulated by their fantasies and desire for perfect relationship and love. Jack, the protagonist in the play, is the root of lies because of his imaginary brother named Earnest. Algernon uses the name to win Cecily, while Gwendolyn and Cecily are both fascinated by this name because it expresses strength and perfection of manhood. Due to their search and desire to have Earnest, the male and female characters escape from the reality. Therefore, Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest portrays a gender doubled
Throughout the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” deception is shown through most of the main characters. For example, Jack Worthing pretends to be his brother , Ernest, in the town for he will be able to marry Gwendolen and be someone he is not. All of Jack’s life he lived a lie and misunderstood who he truly was, however, his lies became his reality. He lived a double life and no one knew about it, until Algernon questioned the engraving on his cigarette case. Jack was not the only one who pretended to be Ernest, Algernon also played a part in the deception of who Ernest it. Innocent characters also misunderstood who Ernest was and if he even exists. For example, Gwendolen and Cecily believed they were engaged to the same man but
At the very end of The Importance of Being Earnest, Jack and Algernon, who had both been pretending to be named Ernest, actually become Ernest in earnest, through christening and a twist of fate that reveals Jack's birth name to be Ernest, and that he is of noble blood after all. The play ends with the lines, “I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”. This final sentence encapsulates the play as a whole, especially the fact that there is little to no difference between the truth (or the earnest) and the lies that people make up to change how others percieve them (the Ernest, in this case). A Pair of Jeans, on the other hand, rebels against the idea that falsified identities and actual identities are the same thing, with the ending of the short story showing the importance of not allowing the perceptions of others to wholly decide your identity for you, but instead to allow these percieved notions of identity to shape and guide you. This can be seen in the repeated description of Miriam's facial expression as “mutinous” towards the end of the text; a word that conjures up images of rebellion and insubordination, illustrating that Miriam is her own person, with her own identity, rather than the paragon of
As subset of the theme of values, Wilde explores in depth what it means to have a dual identity in Victorian society. Wilde himself knew the nature of the double life, having indulging in activities that were illegal and vilified by “respectable” society while appearing to be a husband and father in a traditional household. The theme of a double life of outward respectability while secretly transgressing society’s moral code is central to the plot of the Importance of Being Earnest. This is epitomised by the concept of “Bunburying”. Bunburying is, defined by Algernon, an elaborate lie allowing one to misbehave or escape social obligations while appearing respectable and dutiful. This idea is summed up in the text when Jack quips “When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people.” Through Jack’s wit, Wilde suggests that duplicity is an essential part of existence in late-Victorian society. Both Jack and Algernon struggle to remain free of the restrictions of Victorian convention.
Wilde's characters live in a world in which order is constantly vanishing and they scorn stability and simplicity. "The truth", as Algy says, "is rarely pure and never simple."(13) Algy and Jack fulfil their wishes by the means of lying. They are impostors who use false identities in order to free themselves from the hypocrisy of the convention. Their tricks simply serve them as a way to achieve their moral freedom.
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.