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The Importance Of Being Earnest Satire Essay

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“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

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