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Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest

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The importance of being earnest is a play were Oscar Wilde displays different points of view of the society. The play shows the perspective of a high society member towards the ones from his own social standard. Wilde presents the play in such way that even Victorians laugh at themselves without noticing. However he intents more than make fun towards Victorians but to create conscience about some issues that are going on in the society.
The relationship between Jack and Gwendolyn displays one of this issues by being forbidden by Lady Bracknell due to the fact that Jack doesn’t have parents. The idea of her only daughter marrying a man that doesn’t come from a well-known family is atrocious. Something ridiculous now a days but something extremely important in the Victorian Era were the image was the most important and only thing that really matter. Lady Bracknell stated “… As for the particular locality in which the handbag was found, a clock room at a rail way station might serve to conceal social indiscretion—has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now –but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for recognized position in good society”(1). …show more content…

There is no doubt that Cecily loved Algernon and that he was determinate to be engaged with her. Once again Lady Bracknell forbids the relationship at first because Cecily didn’t look quite what she was expecting in the terms of high society aspects. However this impression changes rapidly as she is told the amount of heritage she possessed. Lady changed her mind by stating “A moment, Mr. Worthing. A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid

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In the Victorian Era, there were repressive and suffocating norms. Many people were cultivating a double life to be able to escape from their restrictive obligations in a respectful way. In The Importance of being Earnest, Oscar Wilde creates scenes where the characters, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, live secret lives to make a false impression about who they really are. Both characters are unsatisfied with their social lives by participating in boring dinners and living a typical Victorian family life, which leads them to create a double life that helps them escape from their social class. In Act 1, Algernon tells Jack, “You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town

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And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me the most attractive young lady, now that I look at her” (Wilde 78). This quote shows that Cecily has a good quality of being very wealthy. In Victorian times, both women and men are attractive based on their wealth. Being affluent is what makes a person more and more good looking to others and the quote is satire because is basically states that that is all people would care about back then.

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The lower classes were obliged to work hard in the factories and farms and make do with very low wages. It often resulted in friction between the classes bordering on social strife although it never erupted in a revolution the way it did in France. The injustice of the English society encouraged novelists such as Oscar Wilde to describe in moving terms the many hardships suffered by the common people and the many failures and follies of English life. Oscar Wilde’s great plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, incorporates some classical

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Oscar wilde was a accomplished writer. A.Oscar had some successful plays. The Importance of Being Earnest, One of Wilde’s most important works, The Importance of Being Earnest is a clever farce. The main character is Jack Worthing, a respectable landowner.

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Wilde’s representation of the British upper class, its values and opinions, is presented most notably through Lady Augusta Bracknell. She is a dignified aristocratic residing fashionable London society circles. On the surface, she is very typical Victorian woman. As a mother to Gwendolen Fairfax, she has a great authority over her controlling her life. She has even a list of ”eligible young man” whom she is ready to interview in order to select a suitable partner for her daughter.

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The purpose of The Importance of Being Earnest was to satirise the Victorian traditions, false courtesy, and the superficiality of status and the quest for love and marriage. These manifests itself in Jack through his superiority toward his foil, Algy, who doesn't adhere to social protocol, and his deluded hope for a life with Gwendolyn, whom Jack views as a solution to his problems and a way to heighten his status, not as a life partner. Furthermore, putting emphasis on his delusion and hypocrisy. The hyperbolic "we will be the picture of perfection", "That satisfaction will come when, and only when, I have Gwendolyn as my wife" and derisive "the irony of which was evidently, though not shockingly, lost on him" are reflections of this and create cohesion between the character in the play and the

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The idea that marriage is treated as a business is expressly shown by multiple characters. The most recognizable example is Lady Bracknell after she learns that Jack proposed to her daughter, Gwendolen. “Lady Bracknell: I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men,

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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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The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) by Oscar Wilde, conforms to a traditional comedy of manners including its use of verbal wit spoken by stock characters that hardly have any depth to them. This allows Wilde to poke fun at the Victorian upper classes by exposing their ridiculous and hypocritical views on society. A typical trait in a comedy of manners is exploring the theme of love and marriage which inevitably leads to conflict between the characters2. In The Importance of Being Earnest, the otherwise slow moving plot is accelerated by various scenes of conflict, for example Lady Bracknell’s consistent disapproval of Jack.

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On the other hand, Wilde explores how social relationships can influence the compatibility of marriage between individuals. Both of these factors acts as an obstacle for Jack as he seeks approval to marry Gwendolen Fairfax. Oscar Wilde demonstrates the importance of social relationships and the social status as the determining factors for the compatibility of marriage and love during the Victorian era. The Victorians valued one’s social status as it was seen at the utmost importance when it comes to marriage.

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Though Wilde tells us that Cecily is “not a romantic girl”, the flakiness of Jack and Algernon lend us to expect her to be the opposite—and Wilde knows this. Instead of make Cecily out to be the typical damsel in love so common in romance novels, he makes her a damsel who has gone a bit loony with love. So when Wilde ends his play by both invoking its title and giving it a double meaning, he’s able to end on the same key that the play has had all along: maintaining a saccharine tone while presenting an unpredictably predictable revelation. In a way, The Importance of Being Earnest sets its audience up to understand its title. Most people would assume that Earnest is, well, about some person realizing the importance of being earnest.

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