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Critical analysis of the importance of being earnest
Critical analysis of the importance of being earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
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Oscar Wilde Biography Oscar (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills) Wilde was a witty, eccentric, and “dandy” man who was born in Dublin on October 16, 1954. The names Oscar and Fingal originate from Irish folklore. His main calling in life was to diverge from the strict Victorian tradition and society. Wilde was raised in a busy upper class Victorian household where artists, writers, and professionals often visited. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a distinguished surgeon who was Queen Victoria’s oculist and was later knighted for founding a hospital. Wilde’s mother, Jane Francesca Elgee, was a famous a writer and novelist advocating Irish independence. Although he didn’t make many friends during school, Wilde demonstrated his brilliance throughout …show more content…
his educational life. He won a scholarship to Trinity College in Dublin at the age of seventeen, where he met his lifelong rival, Edward Carson. He won the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek in 1874, which he later sold desperate for money. It was that same year when Wilde moved on to study at Oxford, where he met some of the most influential people in his life. One of these people was Walter Pater. His ideas in aestheticism, the belief that beauty and art are above all other aspects in life, shaped Wilde’s own ideas and lifestyle. He was known to dress flamboyantly and later got involved in homosexual affairs which led to his downfall. Wilde was skilled at writing such a variety of genres, that one could not classify him as a specific genre writer. His writing career started when he wrote poems for publication in 1876 and won the Newgate Prize for poetry in 1878 for his epic poem, “Ravenna.” His career as a playwright started when he published the play Vera in 1881 which touched on Nihilism in Russia. It was cancelled due to political reasons and was not received well by the public. After Vera’s failure, Wilde spent eighteen months lecturing in Britain and married Constance Lloyd in 1884 with whom he had two children with within three years. He published The Happy Prince and Other Tales, a set of fairy tales originally intended for his children. Wilde then wrote a series of novels in 1891, including his most famous book, The Adventures of Dorian Gray. Back from his hiatus as a playwright, Wilde returned to write several plays in the following years. One of these plays is his last and most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest, published in 1895. Although all of these plays were highly acclaimed, he never earned any awards for them until after his death. Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas in 1886 whom he later had homosexual affairs with while married with two children. Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury publicly accused Wilde of sodomy. Encouraged by Douglas, Wilde prosecuted him, but he ended up losing the case and was sentenced to two years of hard labor. The judge believed that homosexual acts were the worst crime one could commit. At first, Wilde was denied a pen and paper while in prison. Once granted the supplies towards the end of his sentence, Wilde wrote an apology to his conduct in his last prose work, De Profundis. After his release, he was a divorced and broken man. Wilde assumed a new identity and moved to Paris where he lived the rest of his life, officially ending his writing career. Wilde died in 1900 due to cerebral meningitis, a disease he started to contract while in prison. After his death, Wilde’s work received a resurgence. In time he became known as one of the world’s best literary figures. Much of his work is still in frequent circulation to this day. His children’s books were recorded on tape in the 1990s and his most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is still regularly performed. Oscar Wilde will forever be known as one of the witty favorites amongst the legends in the literary world. Critical Analysis The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most famous and beloved play.
Written in 1895, it is Wilde’s last play, but it leaves the greatest impact of all of his literary works. The play follows Jack Worthing, an upper class man who lives a double life in England during the Victorian era. He goes by the name Jack in the country, and Ernest in the city, using the mishaps of his fake brother who he named Ernest as an excuse to go to the city. Eventually, a complicated love affair occurs as a result of Jack’s double life. The Importance of Being Earnest is such a unique classic that it cannot be truly classified with other plays of similar manner. Its message against traditional Victorian tradition is powerful while keeping an extraordinary satirical and farcical …show more content…
style. The Importance of Being Earnest is one of those literary masterpieces that creates its own genre.
As John Drinkwater states in his critique of the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest really forms a class in English drama by itself.” Some may attempt to classify into a specific category, but the reality is that its unparalleled style is like no other. The play brilliantly utilizes farcical humor as a primary tool to fuel the plot. One example of this takes place when Gwendolen, the love interest of Jack, declares that her “ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest.” Jack puts himself in a position that coincidentally leads to his name being Ernest in the city. A large portion of the plot carries on due to this coincidence. In fact, most of the story is brought about due to farcical situations rather than character development. This style of writing generates unrealistic situations such that - as Arthur Ransome explains in his criticism - “the plot has been lightened till it can fly with the wings of the dialogue.” There is never a time in the play that should is taken really seriously. Even when Jack informs Miss Prism, the governess, that his brother, Ernest, “dies,” Miss Prism replies with the witty statement, “What a lesson for him! I hope he will profit by it.” The fact that a character’s death is a joke and has almost no real impact on the characters exemplifies the light nature of the play. The overall style of the play assists one of the play’s
purposes, which is to expose and criticize the faults of the upper class Victorian lifestyle. The culture of the Victorian era is known to be very proper under the supervision of Queen Victoria. Oscar Wilde and other satirical writers use comedy as a way to ridicule the behaviors of the people of the time. The Importance of Being Earnest does this in an obscure manner as it is, “.... the most trivial of social plays” (Ransome). Jack’s best friend, Algernon, developed a way of getting away from his typical life much like Jack by inventing “.... an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.” Escaping the strict lifestyle of the time is a desire of both Jack and Algernon, hinting that it was not an exciting time to live. The play expresses this in a way that is humorous and ambiguous while still sending the message. Using just the needed and correct dialogue to do so, The Importance of Being Earnest always has “not three words in seven dramatically right but seven in seven” (Drinkwater). Lady Bracknell, mother of Gwendolen, is the character in the play that most resembles the typical British upper class woman. When interviewing Jack to determine if he is fit to marry her daughter, she applauds him for doing many things right, such as smoking and having a good income. However, she scorns Jack of losing both of his parents, “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness.” Lady Bracknell’s character pokes fun at how the upper class is expected to act versus how they really act. Lady Bracknell gives no respect to the parents that Jack has lost and only cares about irrelevant values. The play makes this theme clear again by using vagueness and satire. Oscar Wilde masterfully and obscurely uses satirical humor to mock the people of its time at every turn of his play. The Importance of Being Earnest is a play that one will never forget. Creating a genre exclusively for itself, never has a play or any other literary work express such farcical and satirical humor that resonates with its time so skillfully. The play is the definition of unreal. It is the definition of art.
Oscar Wilde, the writer of The Importance of Being Earnest, celebrated the Victorian Era society while criticizing it in his play. Through his play, he utilized the humorous literary techniques of pun, irony, and satire to comment on the impact of Victorian Era society left on the characters themselves. These comedic literary devices also help to show how the members of this society in the Victorian Era live by a set of unspoken rules that determine politeness, as well as proper etiquette to live by. Wilde uses a pun in the title of the work, as well as in the character personalities. Different types of irony appear in many scenes in the play, to flout the rules of society, as well as mock the intelligence of the upper-class characters, compared to the lower-class characters. Wilde satirizes the rules of the upper-class society of the Victorian Era through the dialogue of the characters. The time period in which these characters live, impacts their daily lives, and their personalities.
AThe Importance of Being Earnest, a play written by Oscar Wilde, is set in England in the late Victorian era. Wilde uses obvious situational and dramatic irony within the play to satirize his time period. According to Roger Sale in Being Ernest, the title has a double meaning to it and is certainly another example of satire used by Wilde. With a comedic approach, Wilde ridicules the absurdities of the character’s courtship rituals, their false faces, and their secrets. Sale, 478.
The plot of the importance of being Earnest starts off with Jack and Algernon as wealthy bachelors, with Jack at the beginning of the play is known to Algernon as Ernest lives a very good life in the country providing
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.
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.
In conclusion, The Importance of Being Earnest strongly focuses on those of the upper class society and the vanity of the aristocrats who place emphasis on trivial matters concerning marriage. Both Algernon and Jack assume the identity of "Ernest" yet ironically, they both are beginning their marital lives based on deception and lies. Lady Bracknell represents the archetypal aristocrat who forces the concept of a marriage based on wealth or status rather than love. Through farce and exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the foolish and trivial matters that the upper class society looks upon as being important. As said earlier, a satirical piece usually has a didactic side to it.
“Ignorance is like a delicate fruit; touch it, and the bloom is gone,” engraves Oscar Wilde as he sets the literary table with a bountiful demonstration of Victorian satire. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is evidently a comic critic of late Victorian value (Schmidt 5). Brought into this world from Dublin, Ireland, to well-heeled parents in 1854. Wilde received an opportunity for social improvement when graduating from Oxford University, after receiving a financial scholarship that gave him a first hand account of the upper crust society lifestyle which allowed him to acquire material to poke fun at (Moss 179). Wilde shows his characters as if they knew that people where watching them. By doing that he caused the audience to feel that the actors had authentic regret about their characters actions (Foster 19).
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, to William and Jane Wilde, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, Ireland. Oscar’s father, William, was one of Ireland’s most respected surgeon and author, while his mother, Jane, was a poet and went by the nom de plume “Speranza”. Oscar was the second of their three children, but he also had three half-siblings from his father’s side. Oscar and his two siblings were raised in an artistic atmosphere, particularly due to his mother’s occupation and personality.
The Importance of Being Earnest, a trivial Comedy is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on February 14 1895, it is a comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious identities to escape demanding social obligations. Throughout the play,
The Importance of Being Earnest appears to be a conventional 19th century farce. False identities, prohibited engagements, domineering mothers, lost children are typical of almost every farce. However, this is only on the surface in Wilde's play. His parody works at two levels- on the one hand he ridicules the manners of the high society and on the other he satirises the human condition in general. The characters in The Importance of Being Earnest assume false identities in order to achieve their goals but do not interfere with the others' lives. The double life led by Algernon, Jack, and Cecily (through her diary) is simply another means by which they liberate themselves from the repressive norms of society. They have the freedom to create themselves and use their double identities to give themselves the opportunity to show opposite sides of their characters. They mock every custom of the society and challenge its values. This creates not only the comic effect of the play but also makes the audience think of the serious things of life.
Throughout the late nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde wrote plays such as Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest- his most famous play. Earnest is a comedic work that focuses on a pair of wealthy men. They have been leading double lives so that they can go off for periods of time and enjoy living without responsibility while still maintaining their aristocratic reputation. Because of Wilde’s invlovement in the aesthetic movement, it is not uncommon (or unfair) to believe that his work, Earnest included, is nothing more than fluff. That being said, it is also fair to argue that this particular play does have meaning in it. Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest as a commentary on the hypocrisy of the ideal Victorian character. Earnestness is sincerity- which most Victorians believed themselves to be- and so Wilde uses the word ironically. In his eyes, people who considered themselves sincere were actually smug, self-righteous, and pompous. He expresses these opinions clearly through the play’s over-the-top and frustrating characters.
Oscar Wilde was born in October 16, 1854, in the mid era of the Victorian period—which was when Queen Victoria ruled. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901.While she ruined Britain, the nation rise than never before, and no one thought that she was capable of doing that. “The Victorian era was both good and bad due to the rise and fall of the empires and many pointless wars were fought. During that time, culture and technology improved greatly” (Anne Shepherd, “Overview of the Victorian Era”). During this time period of English, England was facing countless major changes, in the way people lived and thought during this era. Today, Victorian society is mostly known as practicing strict religious or moral behavior, authoritarian, preoccupied with the way they look and being respectable. They were extremely harsh in discipline and order at all times. Determination became a usual Victorian quality, and was part of Victorian lifestyle such as religion, literature and human behavior. However, Victorian has its perks, for example they were biased, contradictory, pretense, they cared a lot of about what economic or social rank a person is, and people were not allowed to express their sexuality. Oscar Wilde was seen as an icon of the Victorian age. In his plays and writings, he uses wit, intelligence and humor. Because of his sexuality he suffered substantially the humiliation and embarrassment of imprisonment. He was married and had an affair with a man, which back then was an act of vulgarity and grossness. But, that was not what Oscar Wilde was only known for; he is remembered for criticizing the social life of the Victorian era, his wit and his amazing skills of writing. Oscar Wilde poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” typifies the Vi...
In the play, Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde ridicules and identifies the negative aspects of Victorian society through comedic dialogue. He uses characters with ridiculous personalities to demonstrate his idea of Victorian life. By making absurd scenes with foolish characters, it is his way of mocking the Victorian lifestyle passive aggressively.
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.
An aesthete himself, Oscar Wilde created characters who embodied the values of the Aesthetic Movement in his play "The Importance of Being Earnest". The comedy in this title comes with the double meaning in the word "Earnest", both being the name of one of the characters and the virtue none of them seem to exhibit. Making a jab at the sensibilities of the Victorian elite, Wilde uses his characters' obsession with the way things look, the way people act, and the way they live to explain just how much emphasis was put on appearances at the time. Whether or not something is aesthetically pleasing is of utmost importance to these characters.