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Norms In The Importance Of Being Earnest

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Recommended: Critical appreciation of importance of being earnest

As it is mentioned in the course reader, in comedy, the laughter usually comes from a deviation from the norms. To analyze why the plot in a comedy is funny, we should focus on the inappropriate behaviors of characters in this comedy. In The Importance of Being Earnest, the first deviation I find is a deviation from linguistic norms. In the whole play, Oscar Wilde names the main character as “Ernest”. Due to the title of “Earnest”, which is only one-letter different from the character’s name, the audience may automatically think that Ernest should be a person who is serious and sincere. However, the author gives the audience a surprise! Ernest actually has double identities and hides his past. Another deviation I find is a deviation from
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The words that Thornton Wilder say. Wilder inability to delight in the beauty of ordinary, “undramatic’’ existence. Rather his failure “to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life. The very first has to do with the play implict argument. Thornton Wilder Success Before the successful play writer Wilder was a

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What happens, is that eiron spends most the time verbally ridiculing, humiliating, undercutting and generally getting the best of the alazon, who doesn’t get it. According to Foster, irony works because the audience picks up on clues and understands things that characters of the play aren’t able to.     This example of irony by Foster, closely relates to numerous scenes in the play Macbeth. In the play macbeth there is irony practically everywhere, though there are a couple scenes that stand out for their use of this skillful technique.

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Individuals who have the strength to be themselves can withstand the pressure of world that is constantly trying to change them. Peter Weir's 1989 film Dead Poets Society addresses the issue of when conformity takes hold of an individual and reshapes them. This issue is also addressed by Robert Frost's 1916 poem The Road not taken. Both texts use their characters and plots to show the full danger of conformity.

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Oscar Wilde’s satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest, set in the late Victorian era, London, is a portrayal of British upper class society and its conventions surrounded by a strict code of conduct. In 1890’s class society, earnestness was desired; to follow the moral code and social obligations in order to keep up one’s appearance. Besides, there was a huge gender disparity between men and women. In the play, Wilde criticizes the social inequality and Victorian upper class standards. He characterizes Victorian personae making fun of their qualities; hypocrisy, arrogance and absurdism, ultimately the very vital state and lifeline of not being earnest at all in Victorian society.

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arch 2018 The Importance of Being Earnest: Oscar Wilde’s Criticism on the Upper Class Using humor, cleverness, and style, Oscar Wilde illustrates the lives of the Victorian upper class in The Importance of Being Earnest. More specifically, the “Trivial Comedy for Serious People” reveals in a satirical manner the insignificant concerns of Great Britain’s aristocracy. In the introduction of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings, editor Richard Ellmann creates an overview of Wilde’s best known work.

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An example from the passage is the two contrasting ways he is described. Sherlock

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Oscar Wilde’s Victorian melodramatic play The Importance of Being Earnest opened on February 14, 1895. Wilde used this play to criticize Victorian society through clever phrasing and satire. Throughout the play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde displayed the themes of the nature of marriage, the constraints of morality, and the importance of not being earnest. One of the themes that Oscar Wilde includes in the play is the nature of marriage.

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The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde is an excellent play which has many underlying themes and suggestions especially with regards to the Victorian era, during which this was written. Many themes within the play are reflective of Wilde and his life, including his secrecy and supposed “double life,” his interest in aestheticism, his life pertaining the mannerisms and social etiquette during his lifetime. Today, Oscar Wilde is often remembered in part due to his well known homosexuality trial of 1895 (Linderd, 1), but his “second life” per se had been speculated on for years prior to it, in fact many of his plays contain subtle yet effective implications towards a possible piece of his life kept hidden from the public eye. The Importance of Being Earnest mirrored this double life through the utilization of Jack and Algernon's “Bunburying,” and their motives for lying to the ones whom they love.

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