The Importance Of Being Earnest Essay

Dicken used their work to express their views on the social system and stratification of classes. Likewise, Oscar Wilde was a playwright whose criticism, expressed in the form of satire, mostly targeted the upper classes. His famous play The Importance of Being Earnest provides a prime example of the use of satire as a form of critic. Through the use of characterization and absurd language, Wilde mocks the value given to social institutions in the Victorian upper-class society. Specifically, he satirizes

“The Importance of Being Earnest” In the book “The Importance of Being Earnest”, A man named Jack and a man named Algernon get involved with bunburying. Bunburying is when a someone creates a fictitious invalid friend that basically gets them out of doing activities or events someone else invites them to. Throughout the story the two men use their bunburyist friends to get closer to the girls they are in love with. The girl’s names are Gwendolen and Cecily; both women are determined and set

is nothing wrong with these practices, he or she may not comprehend how intensely the individuals followed their new current traditions. Author Oscar Wilde thoroughly displays just how people during this time period acted in his play The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde pokes fun at various elements of the Victorian society. To better understand how Wilde’s play made fun of the Victorian society, one must look at the following elements: manners, triviality and immaturity Author Oscar Wilde wanted

The Frivolity of Being Earnest: Inversion in The Importance of Being Earnest In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, the trivial and superficial override the strict moral ideology of the Victorian period. The play revolves around Jack Worthing, a man who creates a second identity: when he is in the city, he is Jack, and when he is in the country, his name is Ernest. He is engaged to Gwendolen, an aristocratic woman who wishes to only marry a man who is named Ernest. Her haughty aunt, Lady

valid in both”(Foster, 19). Reinert compares The Importance of Being Earnest with An Ideal Husband. In his earlier play, Lord Goring is a hero who seems flippant and shallow but is later shown to have wit and character. Whereas, in Earnest the characters remain fools throughout the play. The “heroes”, Jack and Algernon, seem to respect Prism and Chasuble who are meant to be the foolish characters. That is the reason The Importance of Being Earnest cannot be labeled as a play of manners

In the play by Oscar Wilde “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Wilde takes a comedic stance on a melodrama, portraying the duplicity of Victorian traditions and social values as the modernism of the twentieth century begins to emerge. The idea of the play revolves around its title of the characters discovering the importance of being earnest to their individual preferences. The author uses the traditional efforts of finding a marriage partner to illustrate the conflicting pressure of Victorian values

and Foolery In times where earnestness is priority, foolery ensues to escape societal pressure and morality takes a back seat. Oscars Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ highlighted this fact with satire. In the Victorian Age of London, outward appearance of seriousness, respect, and societal conformity are of the utmost importance. Citizens of this age were expected to uphold those standards, even above their own happiness and health. With so much pressure to keep up with reputations

breaks trust and is the opposite of intimacy. The novel, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, is a hypocrisy comedy. Jack, the main character, chose to live in a lie, and created a fake identity. The theme largely revolves around the name “Earnest” meaning sincere, honest, and serious. The book shows the importance of being earnest but has characters that do quite the opposite, mainly Jack. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was mainly about a guy named Jack, who was discovered

The Importance of Being Earnest shows morality through all the characters in various ways. Each person teaches a different lesson that readers should take away in their everyday lives. For instance, comedy and deception are two ways that Wilde tries to show characters acting immorally. In the Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde satirizes morality through the characters Algernon, Jack, and Cecily. Throughout the play, Algernon discreetly breaks social norms through bunburying, defying human

Wilde uses Gwendolen’s and Cecily’s obviously superficial affection towards each other to again accentuate and criticize the importance that the Victorian’s placed on an individual’s name. The practice of naming others as a means to display one’s own dominance is satirized by the irony in the argument between the two young ladies. The audience detects that they are undoubtedly fighting over Ernest as well as superiority, but their true feelings are ironically hidden (rather poorly) under fake earnestness