As more works enter the world of literature every year, authors must find ways to uniquely connect with their audience, and set themselves and their piece apart from other stories. Oscar Wilde uses satire throughout his story The Importance of Being Earnest to provide social commentary and lighten the mood in this comedy. The main characters appear foolish and pompous throughout, indicating his perspective on their time period, and how he believes those characters would interact with each other. Emphasized in the article “The Power of Ridicule: An Analysis of Satire” by Megan Leboeuf, the use of satire not only adds depth to a story, but also offers the author a protected voice and a chance to critique the time period they live in as a whole. …show more content…
This underlying criticism allows Wilde to connect with the audience in a comical yet complex manner. Satire’s ability to form a connection between the author and their audience indicates the significance it can hold in passing on the writer’s message. Satire is not often explicit, and requires some analysis and work from the reader to fully comprehend it. This small puzzle could help connect the audience with the writer, and Wilde uses it to target specific characters to help create a mob mentality to form a community of sorts. This idea of making fun of the target of the satire makes it easy for the audience to turn against them, but even when the humor is extraneous to the actual critique being made, it keeps the attention of the audience. This ability to keep the attention of the audience throughout the story certainly aides the ability of Wilde to maintain his audience and enhance his story. The opportunity to present an author’s views in a unique way renders satire a useful tool for any writer.
Megan LaBeouf's article “The Power of Ridicule: An Analysis of Satire” claims that, “Messages that would be ignored or punished if overtly declared are reaching millions of people in satirical form, and making a real difference” (LeBeouf). This idea that a bold and explicit statement made by a writer or speaker could quickly be dismissed as radical or audacious and not analyzed makes satire a way into the reader’s mind. For example, as Wilde commentates on the social hypocrisy and division of class across the Victorian time period, he employs the character of Lady Bracknell to depict the issues with the class system. As the characters begin to become engaged, she immediately judges Cecily based on the fact that Jack is her guardian. However, her views instantly change when Jack tells her that Cecily has a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in funds, as she retracts and states "A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her" (Wilde 1474). Emphasis is placed on a person's wealth rather than their personality, sincerity, or compassion for the other. Marriage is viewed as an economic factor, whereby people marry for wealth or to conserve wealth in their families, especially Lady Bracknell who represents the guardian of an upper class society. She is however a hypocrite and uses social morals to her …show more content…
convenience. For example, she refuses to let Jack marry Gwendolen because of his social background, yet she tries to justify a financially unstable Algernon marrying the wealthy Cecily. If Wilde’s point hadn’t been made clear enough to the audience however, her hypocrisy becomes apparent when she also confesses that she was not rich when she married her husband. "Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that. When I married to Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind" (Wilde 1474). This example provides an even more tough to swallow comparison for the audience to relate to, because Lady Bracknell’s snootiness has benefited her, but is also the driving factor in the prevention of the marriages. The audience is able to gain traction with the story, due to this shift, and begin to make some of the tension between the characters personal. This satirical and wildly pretentious depiction of a main character within the story is able to send an implicit message of Wilde’s thoughts on the Victorian time period as a whole in a unique and creative way. The use of satire is furthermore able to aid in the enhancement of the story as a comedy.
Wilde’s characters engage in foolishness throughout the story, and perform some actions that make the play more enjoyable for his audience. For instance, Algernon scolds Jack ridiculously as he is dressed for mourning of Jack’s fake brother. Algernon claims, “Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It is perfectly childish to be in deep mourning for a man who is actually staying for a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque” (Wilde 1460). Algernon is the character who foils Jack’s plan, so his ridiculous attack upon Jack’s wardrobe seems both shallow but silly. Even down to the word choices and logic Algernon uses, such as “childish,” and “grotesque” add to the absurdity of this statement, and help the reader not only get a glimpse into the characters true selves, but also enjoy the drama between them as comedy. This is furthermore seen as the two courting gentlemen eat muffins after they have just been exposed as liars to their suitors. During this time of distress, they end up in a trivial argument as Jack accuses Algernon of being heartless for gladly eating during this time, when Algernon responds back “Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner” (Wilde 1469). This laughable response offers slapstick humor to the audience, while continuing to provide satirical elements of the
characters and their personalities. It’s comedic that the men are fighting over muffins when the loves of their lives have just left them, and even further depicts the childlike behavior of the characters as they fight over muffins like children. This satirical and authorial choice to include these behaviors within the story not only enhances his social commentary on the matter, but gives the audience a chance to engage in the story through humor. LeBeouf states that authors “employ humor to emphasize the absurdity of their characters acting in this way, and in order to make it accessible to the general public” (LeBeouf). Since a greater audience can be achieved and more people will be willing to hear his message, satire provides Wilde with the opportunity to more easily express his message and entertain his audience. The Importance of Being Earnest tackles the victorian time period through satire, and gives a glimpse not only into the time period, but also into the thoughts of the author, Oscar Wilde. His choice to slyly include his critiques and impressions of the time period can influence the audience, and add depth to his arguments. The play may serve not only as a critique on the past time period, but also as an example of behavior that is to be avoided for the future. The characters let petty issues divide them, and become negative models for dealing with internal and external issues. Through connecting with his audience, aiding the comedic value of the story, Wilde satirically reveals the foolish and trivial matters that the upper class society, and the characters look upon as being important.
The idea of absurdity in Victorian times was embraced by some writers and looked down upon by others. Oscar Wilde embraced the absurd whole-heartedly. This is obvious, if not even the theme, of The Importance of Being Earnest. Not only is the word "absurd" used many times in the story, but the ridiculousness of the characters and their roles conveys the ideas of absurdity in the Victorian Era.
Wilde “awoke laughter” in The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde showed rather than falling in love because you actually liked a person, the people of the Victorian Era fell in love solely on minute details such as physical features, a person’s name, or how much wealth they had. The comedy comes into play when Wilde pokes fun at the process of falling in love, because the characters rush falling in love with the right person, the audience compares the character’s reality with the world’s reality.
In Oscar Wilde’s drama The Importance of Being Earnest, he uses light-hearted tones and humor to poke fun at British high society while handling the serious theme of truth and the true identity of who is really “Earnest.” Truth as theme is most significantly portrayed through the women characters, Gwendolen and Cecily but to present serious themes comically, Wilde portrays women to be the weaker sex of society, despite the seriousness of the subject—the identity of the men they want to marry.
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.
Wilde does this in order to portray Lady Bracknell with very strong Victorian views that are illogical and humorous to the reader thus satirising the values which are prominent in Victorian standards. Consequently it can be seen that Lady Bracknell is corrupt beyond reason, sacrificing the happiness of her daughter for her Victorian values and ridiculing Jack for his less than exemplary past. Some critics believe Lady Bracknell to be a ‘living parody of upper class values’ which can be
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.
In the play, Wilde uses Algernon’s relationship with food to criticize the repression of desires during the Victorian era. Food also played a large role in Victorian society as a symbol of status and repression of urges. Upper-class Victorians were careful not to eat too much to show their self-restraint (“Victorian”). Similarly, eating plays a large role in the book and could symbolize “appetites and emotions that it is not respectable or polite to air openly” (Laws). Algernon’s chief vice appears in his overindulgence in food. Algernon’s preoccupation with food appears many times in the play and he often appears to be “[e]ating as usual,” according to Jack (1.296). At the beginning of the play, Algernon orders cucumber sandwiches for Lady
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 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.
“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 Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray addresses fundamental issues that are frequently neglected in society by incorporating satire into his novel. “Satire,” as defined by the dictionary, is “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” Wilde frequently uses satirical principles throughout the entire novel, typically during incidents involving Dorian Gray. Wilde presents Dorian as a beautiful, seemingly innocent, individual with an aggressive desire for eternal youth and beauty. Wilde uses satire with the intent of bringing attention to the abysmal pursuit of beauty in everything and the craving to be beauteous.
Satire is a genre of literature that many authors have written in, particularly when writing in or about the Victorian time period. Authors would write satirical novels with the intent to provide constructive social criticism, to draw attention to issues in their society, and to shame individuals, corporations, governments, and society, in general, into improvement. Two writers who successfully use satire in their works are Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf. Both writers satirize gender roles and social status in their respective works of The Importance of Being Earnest and Between the Acts. In his play, Wilde utilizes the techniques of inversion and puns to get his satire across, which work together to form a specific critique of marriage and social status in a Victorian society, and those that enforce these rules. Woolf, on the other hand, uses both parody and irony to create a more relatable and less direct viewpoint on society and the people who fit into it. Both Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf use satire to criticize gender roles and social status in a Victorian society, but through different techniques direct their satire at different audiences.
Lady Bracknell represents the typical aristocrat who focuses the idea of marriage on social and economic status. She believes that if the men trying to marry these girls are not of proper background, there is no engagement. Through this major exaggeration, Wilde satirically reveals the irrational and insignificant matters that the upper class society uses to view marriage.
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.