The Importance Of Being Earnest Essay

“The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde is a satirical playwright set in the late 1800’s during the Victorian era. With some elements of drama and comedy, Wilde illustrates an exaggerated, yet very accurate portrait of the Victorian upper class. He distinguishes the differences and the similarities of the privileged and the not-so-privileged with the help of some irony and a boat-load of puns. From the title alone, you can concur that things are not always what they seem and if something

Many dramas are told in a specific way in order to make a point. Being written as a comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde adheres the idea that drama should never teach but only entertain. The play ridicules the two protagonists Algernon Moncrieff and John Worthing who carry a double life. They lie in order to have everything they want, and also to be able to conquer the women they love. John with his desire to marry Gwendolen Fairfax faces the difficulty of achieving her mother's

The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde, first performed in 1895. The title works on a pun between the adjective "earnest", meaning honest or sincere, and the name Ernest, which the two female protagonists of the play, Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are fond of. Indeed, they have this deep desire of marrying a man named Ernest. The funny thing is, their two suitors, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, pretend both to be named Ernest. This lie, which contradicts totally the

The deception of appearance is also echoed in “The Importance of Being Earnest” with Wilde immediately addressing the point that “appearance blinds” through the main protagonists of Jack and Algernon with both of these characters assuming the name of “Ernest” in order to deceive Gwendolen and Cecily respectively. Wilde is explaining to the audience the shallow nature of the upper class by depicting how easy it is in constructing a deceptive appearance, with a simple name change allowing this. Fitzgerald

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a satirical play about the trivial values the upper-class held during the Victorian era. In this play, two men, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, choose to bend the rules and live a double life in order to break away from the monotony of wealthy living. Algernon calls this Bunburying, and is an expert on what it means to be a Bunburyist. Algernon freely lives his life by his own code of values. One value Algernon holds is play time rather than

In the satirical play “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the playwright, Oscar Wilde mocks the ideas that Victorian society had about marriage. The scene in which Jack, one of the main characters, attempts to persuade Lady Bracknell to allow him to marry Gwendolen, her daughter, is over dramatic and humorous in order to show how the Victorian society treated marriages. Oscar Wilde subtlety argues, through comedy, that most marriages are for financial and social gain instead of love, emotions, and

norms resulted in social isolation and other consequences. There were specific rules and scripts females needed to follow to be part of society and respected by their peers. Oscar Wilde sets out to challenge these norms in his play, The Importance of Being Earnest. The play follows two male characters that deceive their respective love interests to earn their hands in marriage. While there are certainly instances in Wilde’s play, where female characters conform to their gender roles,

Satire of Gender Within the Victorian Era Oscar Wilde in "The Importance of Being Earnest" satirizes gender within the Victorian Era. He does this by creating a foil between Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell. In this particular era, Lady Bracknell, is the perfect Victorian woman. She is prim, proper, and reserved. Whereas, Gwendolen is outspoken, clever, and bold. One begins to see this contrast based on how they interact with others and then each other. In her interaction with Jack as he proposes she

In Act II of the play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde creates humor through the use of the three levels of irony: dramatic, verbal and situational. This recurring elements can be seen throughout the scene in Algernon and Cecily dialogue with each other. Wilde does this in order to satirize love and romance in the Victorian Age as well as the standing values that it upholds. In the beginning of the scene, dramatic irony takes place when Cecily and Algernon “decide” to marry each other

In the satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, the author uses exaggeration and two examples of irony to create humorous dialogue and situations between the characters of Algernon—a wealthy man from the city who is good friends with Jack, and, in this scene, is pretending to be Jack’s made-up younger brother Ernest—and Jack’s young, eighteen year old ward who lives in the country, Cecily. Wilde uses Cecily’s age, personality and upbringing to his full advantage in this scene