ipl-logo

Marxism In The Importance Of Being Earnest

919 Words4 Pages

How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? In his play The Importance of Being Earnest (1895, London St. James’ theater), Oscar Wilde portrays the attitudes and society of Victorian upper class through character interactions within the ‘Bunburyist’ adventures of Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing. The play’s comedic elements, in addition to the portrayal of power structures, are used as an effective medium to challenge the viewer to reflect upon Wilde’s criticism on institutions and values of the aristocracy. In conjunction to this, deeper analysis can be conducteds about marriage in Victorian aristocracy and their attitudes to members of other social groups. Wilde portrays the upper class’ attitudes towards the rest …show more content…

A tool in revealing this is the concept of Dualism, which is, “simply stated, the split of one into two, while still existing as one”. In the context of the play, characters such as Lady Bracknell live a double life to a certain extent. Initially, she seems like the archetypal aristocrat, but upon closer inspection, this impression is rebutted by her history: she is revealed to have just climbed up the “social ladder” by marrying up with Lord Bracknell. Lady Bracknell, “the guardian of the morality of the society, the only reliable source of taste and probity” is revealed from her superficial image with identification of her as “a social climber and not an aristocrat at all”. The basis for this conclusion can be found from Act III and Lady Bracknell’s address to Algernon: “When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of allowing that to stand in my …show more content…

On several occasions, characters in the play express their indifference to matrimony: Lane, Algernon’s servant, mentions in conversation with Algernon that his marriage was “consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person”, undermining the importance of intimacy in marriage. Lady Bracknell backs up this idea in Act III, where she tells Cecily Cardew and Algernon that: “I am not in favor of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable”, displaying the belief that one does not actually need to be acquainted with the person they are to marry. Lady Bracknell also refers to another characteristic of Victorian marriages, which was their establishment as a predestined business transaction. In Victorian society, arranged marriages were more often a rule than an exception, and children had little to no say about these matters. During the play, Gwendolen experiences this when Lady Bracknell denies her engagement to Jack, saying that “you are not engaged to anyone. When you become engaged to anyone, I will inform you of the

Show More
Related

Analysis Of The Other Paris By Mavis Gallant

560 Words | 3 Pages

This passage describes the engagement of two persons, Howard and Carol, who have known each other for only a short period of time. At first glance and how it has been told to the peers of Carol they were happily in love and the proposal was want every romantic could ever dream of. In reality neither Carol nor Howard are in love but are pressures into marriage because society forces them to

Read More

The Coquette Literary Analysis

1073 Words | 5 Pages

Her thoughts on marriage are made clear that after the death of Mr. Haly, the man her parents had arranged for her to marry, when Eliza says, “I wish for no other connection than that of friendship (818)”. Foster emphasizes the effects that marriage can have on friendship though her letter to Lucy Freeman about marriage where she writes that, “Marriage is the tomb of friendship.” She explains that as soon as people get married they forget about their friends and turn all of their focus to their family. Throughout this novel Foster shows that there can be successful marriages and uses the Richmans as an example as well as Eliza’s friends

Read More

Bernard Marxism In Brave New World Essay

739 Words | 3 Pages

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is based on a utopian society with unique social, psychological, political, and cultural features. The novel hinges on the idea of an all-powerful state that controls almost all aspects of life and makes citizens ignorant problems occurring in their society. Bernard Marx is an Alpha male who fails to fit in the structure created by the World Controllers of his society due to his inferior capabilities. His discontent in society leads him to hold unorthodox ideas about many aspects of life and shapes him as an individual. Through Bernard’s exposure to John the Savage and his heightened need for social acceptance, Bernard Marx is shaped from an admirable character who yearns for more out of life than given in his

Read More

How Does Priestley Present The Divisions Of Society

356 Words | 2 Pages

The play was written in 1945 by JB Priestley, just after the end of WW2 but it is set in 1912. In the Edwardian period people were very well dressed from the middle class upwards and very few people were wealthy. It was hard to move up the social ladder if you lived in that time and the rich tended to treat the poor in a very bad way. Using this he is able to criticise the attitudes and mannerisms of the middle-class people at that time towards the less fortunate. He can also expose the conditions that working-class people were working in by using Eva Smith and the Birlings factory.

Read More

Elizabeth In Pride And Prejudice

303 Words | 2 Pages

Elizabeth is the most critical of how marriages are carried out compared to all other family members and acquaintances; as a result of this, she contains prejudice towards others such as Darcy, which causes her to explode with fury when marriages have been unethically conducted. Elizabeth believes in the importance of having a deep and meaningful connection with the person whom you marry and that the wealth and power one has is too influential of a factor when considering marriage. Therefore, the most important quote in chapters 27 and 28 is “I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going tomorrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him.

Read More

Social Order Paradox In Twelfth Night

1806 Words | 8 Pages

Elizabethan and Jacobean England was an exceptionally hierarchical society, where social order and class remained stringent and impermeable. King Lear and Twelfth Night are examples of how William Shakespeare dramatically engaged with these stratified boundaries by focusing on the characters who attempted to transgress and subvert them. However, as one investigates these social shackles, a ‘social order paradox’ can be found according to Whitney Graham. Graham defines this as, ‘the way in which he effectively critiques and challenges the claim that social hierarchies are inherently rigid, while he, at the same time, simultaneously reinforces and supports these very notions contextually. Thus, though Shakespeare creates worlds in which characters

Read More

What Are The Obstacles In The Relationship Between Elizabeth Bennett And Mr. Darcy

715 Words | 3 Pages

After hearing stories of Mr. Darcy treating him unfairly Elizabeth begins to fall for Mr. Wickham. Along with a bad first impression of each other, another obstacle they face is Mrs. Bennett’s interest in Elizabeth marrying for money and not for love. Mrs. Bennett wants her daughters to have the wealthiest husband they can find, which is why her daughters went to Mr. Bingley’s

Read More

Classism In Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest

3890 Words | 16 Pages

Oscar Wilde wrote his plays against the backdrop of the Victorian English society. It therefore helps to discuss the salient aspects of the Victorian society. Victorian England is known for many paradoxes -- glaring contrasts between the rich and the poor, insistence on morality on the one hand and the practice of cynicism on the other, blooming creativity pitted against blatant constriction, imperial grandeur since Britain was then ruling almost one fifth of the total surface of the earth and domestic squalor since the majority of people did not have decent means of livelihood, and finally collectivity dictated by tradition opposed to the rapidly developing individualism. The class system denied the talented members of the lower classes access to social and economic advancement. The upper classes alone had the privilege of working in the government, the armed forces, and the church, while trade was monopolized by the rising middle class.

Read More

Class System In Twelfth Night

857 Words | 4 Pages

The rigid class system in Middle Age Europe was a primary factor that determined the course of events. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, there are underlying issues throughout the plot involving classes of the characters, and their roles within their class. While for the time period, it was common for those in lower classes to be looked down upon, Shakespeare uses many mediums to slyly challenge this idea. Throughout the play, Shakespeare makes the class differences obvious, yet creates certain character dynamics which challenge preconceptions. Twelfth Night is centered around a distinct and rigid class system, yet Shakespeare comments on its negative impacts, and yearns for a more fluid system, in order to create a more just and fair world.

Read More

Comparing Beggar's Opera And The Importance Of Being E

1737 Words | 7 Pages

Subsequently, these main pairings — Macheath and Polly and Earnest and Gwendolen — are realized at the end of their respective plays. As Macheath is graciously allowed to “be brought back / to his wives in triumph” (Gay 3.16.15-16), he makes the decision to “have [one] wife at last” (3.17.2) in order to avoid any unnecessary controversy his dalliances with other women. Macheath’s realization that Polly is the only “partner” (3.17.8) for the dance that — in the context of Gay’s play — is figuratively alluded to be life. This demonstrates that Macheath formally recognizes Polly as his partner “for life” (3.17.10) because they are “really married” (3.17.11) to each other. As Polly forgives Macheath for attempting to “disown her” (2.13.22) claim as his wife in front of Lucy, this indicates that the relationship between Macheath and her is able to grow into a fulfilling one unsullied by anger or resentment for his infidelity.

Read More

Gender Roles In Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest

928 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

Men And Women In Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband

1285 Words | 6 Pages

The play An Ideal Husband was written by Oscar Wilde in 1895 in England’s Victorian era. This era was characterised by sexual anarchy amongst men and women where the stringent boundaries that delineated the roles of both men and women were continually being challenged by threatening figures such as the New Woman represented by Mrs Cheveley and dandies such as Lord Goring(Showalter, 3). An Ideal Husband ultimately affirms Lord Goring’s notions about the inequality of the sexes because of the evident limitations placed on the mutability of identity for female characters versus their male counterparts (Madden, 5). These limitations will be further elaborated upon in the context of the patriarchal aspects of Victorian society which contributed to the failed attempts of blackmail by Mrs Cheveley, the manner in which women are trapped by their past and their delineated role of an “angel of truth and goodness” (Powell, 89).

Read More

Gentillesse In The Franklin's Tale

1449 Words | 6 Pages

Gentillesse, the the capacity for a being to act compassionately and graciously, was seen as a characteristic of the noble class (Brown 175). In fact, gentillesse was a concept based on both “wealth and social distinction” as well as “character and behavior,” and these two parts were thought to be almost impossible to separate (Carruthers 286). Being an aristocrat was, therefore, a necessary condition for gentillesse; those at the cusp of nobility were not thought to have this characteristic as they were not at the top of the social hierarchy. Yet, the Franklin, a member of the landowning class but not a noble, explores the presumed relationship between the attribute and the high-class. In the “Franklin’s Tale,” the Franklin constructs parallel

Read More

Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest

497 Words | 2 Pages

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!

Read More

The Tempest Feminist Analysis

1106 Words | 5 Pages

The play seems to ‘deny the significance, and even, occasionally the presence of the female characters, however, basing vast power on their chastity and fertility while revealing a patriarchal society. A patriarch society is one that is under the control of men. The males are the heads and the masters, the females are the tails and subjects (Dash, 81). In other words, it is a society that takes women as inconsequential people.

Read More

More about Marxism In The Importance Of Being Earnest

Open Document