Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest"
In the closing lines of the first act of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," Algernon remarks, "I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious," to which Jack responds, "Oh, that's nonsense Algy. You never talk about anything but nonsense." Algernon caps off this exchange with a proclamation of the purpose of the whole work: "Nobody ever does" (1642). Wilde never allows anything in the work to conclude on a serious note. While Wilde repeatedly proclaims this direction for the play through his characters, he does not tell us the motivation for this direction. He never explains why there is this avoidance of earnestness. The most apparent answer lies in the veiled criticism of Victorian society contained at each level of the play. The quick paradoxical epigrams that form the core of the conversational comedy are pointed at Victorian society. Wilde also abuses the concept of characterization with paradox to create comical characters that expose Victorian deficiencies.
Each of these criticisms relies upon the paradoxes that Wilde sets up on successively larger scales within the play. It is, in fact, this tool of humor, not the object of ridicule that truly defines this work. While each paradox is pointed at Victorian society, the individual paradoxes each take on a different element of Victorian society, thereby diminishing the pointedness of the overall criticism. The use of paradox allows Wilde to take this play beyond its narrow and somewhat scattered critique of Victorian society. The underpinning element then, is not Victorian society, but instead the paradox, the concept of dual, irreconcilable elements. This more lasting topic is, not co...
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...man in prudish nineteenth century England Oscar Wilde never felt comfortably assimilated into the strait society that surrounded him. He was forced to assume a double identity to cope with his divergence from the norms of the day. This tax that the society levied upon Wilde undoubtedly engendered an animosity, an animosity that is reflected in his ironic, and sardonic treatment of Victorian society in "The Importance of Being Earnest". However, the multiple and irreconcilable identities that Wilde was forced into are the more significant driving force behind this work. This struggle with identities is seen in the paradoxes that pervade all levels of the work. In the end though, these large themes build upon, rather than overshadow Wilde's greatest genius which lies in his subtle turns of phrases and words that keep even the most earnest reader chuckling throughout.
...its objectivity. It provides a clear picture of the Empress’ life in her cultural context and the impact it had on China. I recommend this book to anyone exploring the life of the Empress Dowager—whether it be her personal life, her social life, or her political life. The book truly does provide an extensive amount of information about the Empress—its age stands testament to this (it has been around for 70 years), and I would highly recommend it.
Everyone has a poker face. Everyone has a bunbury. Everyone keeps secrets, and everyone lies. The question is, how does one tell if another is truthful about their intentions? There are many different cases in which one will lie about who they really are, but there is no telling when it is okay and if they can be forgiven. In many different stories that were read in Late British Literature this semester, we have characters that keep secrets from friends and loved ones. The simple truth is, people’s words are often different from the truth.
As the lives of people progress each day, the standard of society changes as well. Each social custom molds our civilization, thus shape our nation. The opportunities that are made available to us actually depend on familiar factors, such as, the era that we’re in, our social class, and our gender. When I read all of our reading materials, I began to realize that I’m gradually aware of how society in general functions. I have learned that, not everyone in our society is catered equally and that there is this glass ceiling that separates us. Using literary lenses in reading these pieces from different authors, I enjoyed reading their works more compared to none. Looking into specific lenses in reading these materials and other literary pieces
Chung, Sue Fawn. “The Much Maligned Empress Dowager : A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-his.” Modern Asian Studies. 13 vol. Cambrige UP, 1979. JSTOR. 1 May 2005 < http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281979%2913%3A2%3C177%3ATMMEDA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U>.
...erpreted as dark and significant to the period. The comedy Wilde achieves is at the expense of the characters who are seemingly intelligent adding to the ironic structure that much of the comedy is based on. Many of the comic elements of the play are shown through human reactions to Victorian repression and the effect it has on the men and women of the time. Love seems to be nonexistent within the finds of the fierce and brutal Aristocracy when so many of the qualities they value are not based on human qualities but that of the class’s social norms. Wildes Characters are at often times not subtle about their distaste in marriage and love, Algernon is no exception to this “In aried lie, three is company, two is none” showing that they all have distorted views on many of the social practices that make them morally sound, thus adding to the satire elements of the play.
The Last Great Empress of China, written by Charlotte Haldane, is the story of how Tzu Hsi (1861-1908, rose to power and managed to keep it. Known by several names through out the course of her life, Tzu Hsi was intelligent, beautiful, and had a voice that could charm anyone. Chosen as an Imperial Concubine in the third class, Yehonala (as she was known at the time) took great care to win the favor of the current Empress Dowager. Her next step was to win the favor of the young Emperor Hsien Feng, which she accomplished with the help of the Chief Eunuch, who she had also won over. In her quest for ultimate power the luckiest event that befell her was the birth of her son. Because the Empress Consort Sakota failed to produce an heir, Yenonala’s son was to become the heir apparent, raising her to the position of first rank concubine. Throughout the course of her life, Tzu Hsi played her cards well, continuously increasing her power.
The first Memoir of 1795 was addressed to the heir of her natal family and took the form of a public appeal in her effort to reestablish her family’s moral legitimacy and honorable family tradition. Before we explore her memoir, it is important to note that she felt responsible for her family’s downfall – believing that her marriage into the royal house had led to directly their suffering and decline. Beyond the scholarly merit of her stories, they are important in the view Lady Hyegyong provides of the court life and the strict Confucian beliefs that stress filial piety, loyalty and virtue. To being with, the move from
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.
Satire in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a play by Oscar Wilde, set in the late 1800's. His actors are playing upper class citizens who are very self-absorbed. The play is set amongst upper class, wealthy people. They appear not to work and are concerned with their own pleasure.
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 impact (or lack thereof) of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 is seen throughout Lu Xun’s stories. In particular the works “Diary of a Madman”, “A New Year’s Sacrifice” and “The True Story of Ah Q” provided evidence of changes (or lack thereof) the revolution brought to China. Focus in particular was paid to the topics of filial piety, female chasteness and Chinese conservatism, respectively in each story.
Irony in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is full of irony. Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, the protagonists in the play, get themselves into a complicated situation called Bunburyism (as Algernon refers to it). They pretend to be someone that they are not to escape their daily lives. They lie to the women they admire, and eventually the truth is revealed.
Warner, Marina. The Dragon Empress: Life and times of Tz'u-hsi, 1835-1908, Empress Dowager of China. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972.
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.
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.