The Importance Of Being Earnest Satire Essay

In the play The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Oscar Wilde, there are many elements of satire. He uses the characteristic of satire to show the reader that the characters are very lax. Many things that we think to be serious are thought of as lighthearted by the characters. We see the element of satire in Jack’s origin story, the death of several characters, and the in outlook of marriage. One of the first places that we see satire is Jack’s origin story. Early in the play we do not know where Jack came from or the identity of his parents. Miss Prism actually confused Jack with a book. She says that she accidentally placed the baby in her handbag and the book in the baby carriage. In our lives, we often see a baby as something very serious. There is a very small chance that we would get a baby confused with a book. However, Oscar Wilde makes light of the situation. The characters almost laugh off the fact that she confused an inanimate object with a newborn. We know that having a baby is an extremely significant and life changing event.

Bunbury and Ernest were not real people. Algernon’s “friend’ Bunbury was a compilation of fiction. Algernon says, “Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon” (qtd. 1490). Algernon did not actually kill Bunbury. He just decided to stop lying about him. We also see satire in the death of Jack’s brother Ernest. The Chasuble asks Jack, “Your brother Ernest dead?” Jack responds with, “Quite dead” (qtd. 1472). Ernest, like Bunbury, is a fictional character. Almost everyone has been affected by death. Death can sometimes cause people to go into deep depression or sadness. Jack and Algernon do not look at the idea of death very seriously. They allow the people that they love to mourn the loss of fake lives. The make a mockery of it by allowing it to affect real people with genuine