The Importance of Being Earnest is a trivial comedy that filled with sarcastic and witty Victorian aphorisms while satirizing the Victorian society and their social morality. Wilde criticizes against the arrogance, self-importance, ignorance, and hypocrisy of the Victorian high society, also targets plenty of ideals and morality facts that were as ridiculous as they were nonsensical. Earnestness is a determined and serious desire to do the correct thing. Ironically, not one character in the play seems to care about being honest. The characters in “The Importance of Being Earnest” play the role of false and dishonest identities to achieve their goals in the society. Appearance was everything, the characters gradually became hypocritical in their fashionable and faddish struggle to obtain the fake ideals of earnestness and they were ready to pay any price for it. (qtd. in Bachelorandmaster) At the very beginning of the play, we have been seeing that two main male characters, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, have been leading double lives. Jack Worthing is a quite responsible and decent young man, while he has invented a fictitious brother named Ernest. In Herthfordshire, Jack is known as Jack, however, in London he is known as Ernest. Jack misleads people to include an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from the country to join among urban socialites. Therefore, there is no character named "Ernest," but everything revolves around being
In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the belief that “all the trivial things of life [should be treated] seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality” was explored in great detail. Wilde’s intent of mocking the hypocrisy and degrees of the British aristocracy is achieved through the employment of ideas and themes such as deception, characterisation and exploration of character’s names and words.
“The Importance of Being Earnest,” a satirical play written by Oscar Wilde, discusses a vast variety of criticisms regarding the late Victorian societal period. In this comedic drama, focusing on and analyzing certain minor characters leads to a more effective interpretation of the messages attempting to be portrayed to the audience. For example, through the persona of Lady Bracknell, Wilde effectively mocks the concept of marriage for social status rather than love. Additionally, interpreting the roles of the lower class servants allows the readers to internalize the desperate need for social reform that the author felt at the time period. Finally, the entire concept of Bunburyism, or masquerading as an alternate persona, satirizes the hypocrisy of the Victorian Era.
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
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, is a story in which the attitude and dialogue simply distinguishes each character for who they truly are. Additionally, the key setting of The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around the idea of deception. Throughout the story, the characters begin to unveil their actual backgrounds after committing the act of telling a variety of lies. Correspondingly, in this victorian era society the character live in, it is ingrained in the minds of individuals that marriage has everything to do with status; or in this case, the name. One character in particular that caught my attention was Algernon Moncrieff. I believe this because through the use of deception, Wilde manages to contribute to the work as a whole through his bravado attitude, comedic relief, and the honest threaded into his lies.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde can be termed as a complete satirical work because of the path it chooses on harshly, but at the same time humorously criticizing and ridiculing social issues, such as marriage, wealth and death. The author approaches these issues with absurd mockery evidently with the intention of tickling his audience while driving his point home. Regarded as one of the most humorous and witty plays of all time, Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest has also been criticized for lacking meaning and being too farce. The author, however, does not seem perturbed or concerned with the criticisms hurled his way, but his is the agenda of correcting the social flaws noticed in his characters, such as the concern for trivial things as names over bigger and more important issues as serious relationships and true love, the love of money over morality and the carelessness of lying in order to “avoid unwelcome social obligation” (16).
Satire in The Importance of Being Earnest The Importance of Being Earnest is a short play written during the Victorian Era by Oscar Wilde. In his play, Wilde’s use of mockery and irony is meant to publicly ridicule the self-centered attitude of the Victorian upper classes, as well as, to expose their hypocrisy, lack of intelligence, and ridiculous social behaviors. Wilde mocks the Victorian structure of society in Britain and the procedures it followed by satirizing issues such as marriage, money, and death throughout the play with each character.
By creating two identities for Jack/Earnest Worthing, Wilde is able to create a farce that satirizes the society of Victorian England. From the first few minutes of the play, the reader or viewer sees the predicament that Wilde has placed Mr. Worthing in. Within the first pages, Algernon,
the drama also satirizes the very idea of earnestness, a virtue to which the Victorians attached the utmost significance. To work hard, to be sincere, frank, and open, and to live life earnestly was the Victorian ideal. Wilde not only satirizes hypocrisy and sham virtue, he also mocks its authentic presence.
During the Victorian Age, The Victorian upper class society judged things through appearance and many laughed at those morals by turning them upside-down through a language, which is satirical, funny and witty. Oscar Wilde was an author during the time that displayed humor into his writing. In “ The Importance of Being Earnest”, Wilde created ridiculous situations and characters whose lack of understanding which cause them to react to things inappropriately. Different characters in the play embody those values and provide us insight into the upper-class society of the Victorian period. The play is centered on the idea of identity, love, marriage and money. Many of the characters’ statements, especially Algernon’s, are humorous because they
The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around substantiality and insignificance. Oscar Wilde, the author, seems to take great delight in making things as un-simple as possible. Although it seems that the primary reason for Oscar Wilde to write this play is to entertain people, he constantly explores what is important and what is trivial, often inverting the two, in an effort to criticize and make people be aware of the social problems of his time. Set in Great Britain at the turn of the century, Wilde’s play makes fun at Victorian society’s major obsession with minor things. For example, Lady Bracknell interviews Jack to see if he is a suitable husband for her Gwendolen.
Oscar Wilde, the author of The Importance of Being Earnest lived and wrote during the Victorian era, a time that was characterized by an emphasis on severe ethical standards. In this comedy and satirical play, he makes fun of everything the Victorian society seems to consider sacred and essential for life. Throughout the play, there are countless areas of criticism Oscar Wilde brings to light that exist in the society. He makes fun of marriage and courtship and the class structure.
The play on the wording suggests that through the name, the man will also exhibit that trait, and show a sincere conviction to their family as well as their work. The men they fall in love with are earnest; however, they stick to their deceit with a more since conviction than their honesty. Jack and Algernon both persist with their story, that they are both named Earnest, in order to win the love of their respective sweethearts, even though their real names are very different. Additionally, each male is ready to undergo a christening to make their name Earnest.
Oscar Wilde frames "The Importance of Being Earnest" around the paradoxical epigram, a skewering metaphor for the play's central theme of division of truth and identity that hints at a homosexual subtext. Other targets of Wilde's absurd yet grounded wit are the social conventions of his stuffy Victorian society, which are exposed as a "shallow mask of manners" (1655). Aided by clever wordplay, frantic misunderstanding, and dissonance of knowledge between the characters and the audience, devices that are now staples of contemporary theater and situation comedy, "Earnest" suggests that, especially in "civilized" society, we all lead double lives that force upon us a
There is no denying that Oscar Wilde was an extremely gifted and talented writer, whose individual and enlightened views on life, as well as the impact of his social life led to the basis of many of his great works. The Importance Of Being Earnest allows the reader to relate different characters and meanings in the play to Wilde's very distinct character and lifestyle; allowing for endless possibilities of contextual investigation and discovery.
Arguably, The Importance of Being Earnest revolves around intricate character development that addresses the issue of double identities and false facades in Victorian England. Residing in Hertfordshire, Jack Worthing constitutes the play’s principal protagonist and is acknowledged for his respectable conduct and righteous ethics. Through acquisition of extensive estates and admission as a Justice of the peace, Jack establishes an honorable reputation for himself. However, because of the limitations imposed upon Jack due to his perceived dignified persona, he occasionally escapes to London where he fulfills and capitulates to unscrupulous indulgences. Moreover, it is revealed that Jack leads a dubious double life posing as his unrestrained and amoral “useful younger brother of the name Ernest” as an excuse to visit “as often as [Jack ] likes” (Wilde, 88). A figment of his imagination, “Ernest” comes to symbolize Jack’s need to evade the irrational constraints of Victorian society while maintaining an aura of respectability.