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Outline For The Importance Of Being Ernest

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I. Oscar Wilde uses food as a source of conflict between social classes and constructs in “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
a. By using food he light heartedly makes conflicted scenes slightly comedic.
b. In his play, Oscar’s two main characters Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, both have a made up double identity.
c. Jack uses the name Ernest when he goes into town, and his real name, Jack when he is in the country.
d. Algernon uses the name Bunbury, when he wants to escape into the country.
e. Both men invent this false identity so that they can move between the social classes and not settle in only one for their whole lives.
f. These fake names gives each man a chance to escape their daily lives and live in a fairy tale of their choosing. …show more content…

Oscar Wilde uses this scene to highlight the way that the higher social class you are, the more you know.
IV. After Algernon and Ernest’s, fake identities is revealed to the women they each love, they begin to eat the food that the women were just previously arguing about.
a. Algernon starts eating the muffins, and Jack says that it is ridiculous that he can sit and calmly eat when they are in a terrible situation.
b. Algernon states that the bread and butter could get on his cuffs if eaten in an agitated manner, while you have to calmly eat muffins; it’s the only way to.
c. Jack claims that Algernon is going to eat all the muffins, so he takes one and begins to eat as well.
d. Algernon adds that Jack eats the cake since he likes muffins better, but Jack protests saying that he should be allowed to eat the muffins since its his house.
e. By eating the food, they in a way, bash the idea of marriage due to the fact that they do not even care what they are eating.
f. The men do not care about what society has to say about eating certain food, they only care about which food they like and do not like.
V. Through out Oscar Wilde’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar uses food as an analogy to poke fun of, and show, the conflict between social classes and

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