Review of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest The play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde definitely proved itself to be “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” I saw the play at State University’s State Theatre. The play was long, in a three-act structure, yet it moved along at a good pace. They did a nice job of preparing the audience, there was an interesting lobby display with sketches of each of the costumes with fabric samples and they played music to fit the time period before the show began. The first of Aristotle’s six components of theatre is plot. This play had an intricate and definitely interesting plot. The story begins with Ernest visiting his friend Algernon, or Algy, at his house in town. Through comical discussion, Algy soon realizes that Ernest’s real name is Jack, and that he is known as Jack at his home in the country. He simply invented the character of Ernest, his supposed evil brother, for an excuse to visit the city more often. Algernon then confesses that he also has a ficticious friend for an escape from reality. His name is Bunbury, and he is a permanent invalid whose illnesses often allow Algernon to escape from unpleasant social engagements. Jack is beginning to worry, because people back home are gaining curiosity as to why they have never met his brother. So, he and Algernon compose a plan. Jack will simply come home very upset and tell everyone that Ernest has died of a “severe chill.” This seems like the perfect plan. However, Algernon decides that he wants to meet Jack’s people from the country, especially his eighteen -year old ward Cecily, so Algernon shows up at Jack’s townhouse pretending to be Ernest, Jack’s brother. Everyone is very excited to fin... ... middle of paper ... ...rds and discovers his real name is that of his late father, Ernest! Ernest is now free to marry Gwendolen, and Algernon may marry Cecily. Character is the next of Aristotle’s six components, and each of the characters in this play are quite developed. The main character’s name is Algernon Moncrieff, He is of a pretty high social status, and is known as one of London’s eligible bachelors. He definitely has a snobby attitude, believing he is better than most; however, the character is portrayed in a funny rather than ignorant manor. His friend Jack Worthing is an all together different story. He admits that he was adopted because someone left him in the cloak room at a railstation when he was merely an infant. Jack is a little less snobby, yet he seems to over exaggerate most things. Gwendolen Fairfax is Algernon’s cousin and also of high social status. She
The death of Willie Starks and the circumstances force Jack to rethink the way he thinks. He rethinks a belief that no one can ever be responsible for the evil actions of another individual over time. In a way Jack feels responsible for Willie’s death. Jack eventually marries Anne Stanton and he feels orthodox about his decision to marry her. Jack restarts his long lost hobby of working on a book about Cass Mastern.
Aristotle was a phenomenal Greek philosopher. His words and thoughts inspired millions, and continue inspiring today. He taught lessons to those who would listen, he preached his scientific findings, but above all, Aristotle enjoyed the theatre. In fact, Aristotle had his own views about different genres. Today we will look at tragedy. In Aristotle’s mind, a tragedy was the process of imitating an action which had serious implications, was complete, and possessed magnitude. He even composed six elements that a tragedy must contain. Aristotle’s six elements of tragedy are a plot, characters, thought, verbal expression, song composition, and visual adornment. Each contributes to an aspect of a tragedy.
As Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.” I agree with Kierkegaard because our lives reveal who we were through our past and who we can be in the future. Likewise, some directors base their plot on this principle, but through the use of plot devices. Through reading and actually going to see the live play production of The importance of Being Earnest at Savanna’s Children Theater, I was able to get an understanding of the characters, hearing the dialogue and seeing their interactions. However, through watching the movie, the character’s personality was better understood through the use of plot devices. The criteria that seems to be the building blocks to the foundation of characterization in The Importance of Being Earnest includes flashbacks and daydreams. These plot devises combined give a clearer understanding of the characters which allows the audience to see things from the character perspective that you wouldnt’t have access to in the play.
Oscar Wilde’s, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, play carefully uses satire as a didactic tool to mask the underlying social commentary with the help of comedy through characters theme and dialogue. Wilde uses satire to ridicule class and wealth, marriage and the ignorance of the Victorian Age. Audiences are continually amused by Wilde’s use of linguistic and comic devices such as double entendre, puns, paradox and epigrams, especially in the case of social commentary and didactic lessons. Characters portrayed in the play such as Jack, Cecily, Algernon and Lady Bracknell, allow Wilde to express his opinions on the social problems during the Victorian Age.
The Importance of Being Earnest is regarded as one of the most successful plays written by Oscar Wilde, a great 19th century playwright. Oscar Wilde deals with something unique about his contemporary age in this drama. It addresses Victorian social issues, French theatre, farce, social drama and melodrama. All these factors influenced the structure of the play in a large scale. This play is basically a Victorian satirical drama showcasing the social, political, economic and religious structural changes that affected 18th century England. It was the time when British Empire had captured most part of the world including Oscar Wilde’s homeland, Ireland. The aristocrats of England had become dominant over the middle and poor class people and Wilde wrote plays with the motivation to encourage people to think against the English aristocracy and artificiality.
According to him the last four elements are not as important as the other two but he believed they are necessary for the play to succeed. Starting with the “thought” he said that is the power of saying whatever not only can be said but also should be said at each moment of the plot. The “diction” is the definite composition of the lines which are recited. There is also a difference between the “thought” which deals with what is said and “diction” which deals with how it is said. The main accessories of the tragedy are “melody” and “spectacle” while Aristotle claimed that the music has to be unified with the play appropriately since Greeks had in their tradition to use musical accompaniment. The “spectacle” mainly deals with the staging of the play and it should be suitable to the subject of the play. The “character” is one of the most important elements of tragedy. Each character has a vital quality or nature which is revealed in the plot. The important thing is that the moral purpose of each character must be obvious to the audience while it should have four qualities. First of all, the characters must be good. Second, they should act properly for their own gender and their class. Third, they have to be authentic. Finally, each character must act always during the play. Nothing should have be done or even
Gwendolen and Cecily act like air-heads and are easily won over by the men they plan to marry. Gwendolen simply wants to marry a man named Earnest. She tells Jack “my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest” (I.381-82). The mere idea of marrying a man for his name shows how easily Gwendolen can attach herself to a man. Marriage is the most serious of all relationships and Gwendolen is foolish to deter...
Firstly I would set this play in the 21st century so that a modern audience could relate to it. Algernon, one of the main characters in the play, would live in a luxury apartment in the centre of London, over looking the River Thames. His apartment would have a minimalist theme to it and would be influenced by aesthetic; for example he would have a piece of abstract art on the wall for no reason other than that he thinks it looks nice.
Algernon, disagrees with the marriage after Jack fails her test of
Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde plays around with the standard expectations along with the absence of compassion of a Victorian society in the 1890’s, he demonstrates this through several genres of comedy such as Melodrama, Comedy of Manners, Farce, dark humour and Irony, as well as portraying the themes, death and illness, in this play in a brilliance of unusual amount of references.
The irony continues to explain how Jack and Algernon were biological brothers. They were pretending to be earlier to play out their game of Bunburyism. Jack had told everybody he had a brother in which was he used as his justification to leave his home in the country and visit his "brother" in the city. Algernon pretends to be Jack brother "Earnest" in order to win over Jack beautiful "niece" Cecily.
Cecily is more concerned with all the parts in a man being just like she pictures her perfect fairytale, than the actual man she is with. Instead of Cecily taking the time to get to know Algernon, She focuses more on morphing him into the man she wants to be with. Cecily writes letters and says they are from Algernon, “And this is the box in which I keep all your dear letters” (Wilde 32). In reality Algernon never wrote these letters “My letters! But my own sweet Cecily, I have never written you any letters” (Wilde 32). Cecily just made this up and it is part of her fantasy. Cecily also makes up that she has cut off their engagement previously. “To-day I broke off my engagement with Ernest. I feel it is better to do so. The weather sill continues charming” (Wilde 33). She believes that a relationship “would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn’t
...ngagement, their re-engagement. Cecily is not the natural country girl. She possesses the self-assurance of the experienced woman. Without being cynical she makes her desires clear. And when Gwendolen and Cecily discover that their Earnests are impostors whose names are Jack and Algernon they decide that love can be restored only if Jack and Algy christen themselves Earnest.
The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners, whereby Oscar Wilde uses satire to ridicule marriage, love and the mentality of the Victorian aristocratic society. It can also be referred to as a satiric comedy. What is a satire and what is Oscar Wilde trying to emphasize by employing it in his play? A satiric comedy ridicules political policies or attacks deviations from social order by making ridiculous, the violators of its standards of morals or manners. Usually, a satiric piece doesn't serve only as a form of criticism, but to correct flaws in the characters or to somehow make them better in the end.
Imagine a play in which characters develop soloy through direct narration to the audience. It would be impossible to have full or complex characters or hold the audience's attention, let alone spark their interest. There are many aspects a playwright must take into consideration when creating a play that will gives the audience a strong theatrical experience, the interaction between characters being one of the most important. Watching a character develop in a number of different situations holds the audience’s attention and helps them connect with the character, making them more involved, and in turn increasing the involvement with the play and theatrical experience. The enhancement of the theatrical experience in Oscar Wilde's The Importance