|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
OSCAR WILDE:
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
A TRIVIAL COMEDY FOR SERIOUS PEOPLE
SHORT SUMMARY OF THE PLAY
Jack Worthing, who lives in the country, pretends to have a younger brother, Ernest, whose escapades frequently call Jack to London. ... Jack has realized, for the first time in his life, ¡¯the vital importance of Being Earnest.¡¯
ABOUT THE PLAY
Oscar Wilde¡¯s The Importance of Being Earnest opened at the St. ... Wilde spent little time cataloguing the details of industrializing England, his work focused on the elite, and while making fun of their absurdities and excesses, it also reveled in their witty banter and rambunctiuos lives.
Running throughout the entire play is the double meaning behind the word ¡¯earnest¡¯, which means both a male name and an adjective describing seriousness. The play twists and turns around this theme, its characters lying in order to be ¡¯earnest¡¯ and then discovering that because of a number of remarkable circumstances they had not in fact been lying at all. Wilde saw earnestness as a key ideal in Victorian culture. ...
Part of the success of this play comes Wilde¡¯s seemingly infinite supply of piquant epigrams (short, witty sayings). ...
¡ñ Algernon Moncrieff: Algernon is the epitome of hedonism, a wit who scores the best of Wilde¡¯s biting lines and who cannot resist indulging in all life¡¯s luxuries. ...
CONFLICTS IN THE PLAY
The Importance of Being Ernest is a classic story of love and a play about identity. ... Usually, authors of that period used the lower classes as their roving grounds for social commentary, but Wilde uses the upper classes, with which he was personally familiar.
Oscar Wilde knew the upper class and he knew that the lives they lead were so dry, boring, concerned with manners and customs, and so perfectly earnest that it was almost inhuman. It is being earnest that the play mainly focuses on, as may be surmised from the title. ... This trivialising of marriage shows Wilde¡¯s view on the matter: he saw it as ¡¯a practise surrounded by absurdity and hypocrisy¡¯. ... ¡¯ Wilde says that marriage based on class by birthright is no less stupid that marriage based on something else a man cannot control: say, his name.
Approximate Word count = 1735
Approximate Pages = 6.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|