Preview

The Importance of Being Earnst Essay

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
379 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Importance of Being Earnst Essay
Lady Bracknell: “To speak frankly, I am not in favor f long engagements. They give people the opportunity to finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.”

There are so many possible ways to create humor in written plays. A main practice that tends to seep through quite accurately to the audience has always been through satirical humor. Ridiculing people’s views and acts seem to make the largest impression on the audience. So many artists use satire to create a humor that is easily understood. Oscar Wilde is not any different oh his approach in The Importance of Being Earnest. In The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde uses many witty literary devices, such as puns, epigrams, and inversions, to reveal the absurdity of his Victorian society’s hypocritical mortality.

Puns have very little pull in the literary drama biased world, although they are still often used. Puns can add humor unknowingly. The audience may not even realize it until they study the script on closer detail. This type of humor tends to add more volume to the characters and plot. It can lend to number of meanings the story line can have, and in turn, change the outcomes that are possible of a script. A first look at how this play uses puns to create a laugh factor is when Lady Brackernell is speaking with Jack in regards to Cecily: “Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all connected with any of the larger railway stations in London? I merely desire information. Until yesterday I had no idea that there were families or persons whose origin was a Terminus.” This pun adds depth to the script because they are using “Terminus” to mean railway terminals, but also is commenting on how Jack was found as a baby in a handbag in a terminal. Another main pun used is actually in the title. The Importance of becoming earnest, which has the possible meanings of the importance of changing to the name of Ernest, which both male characters plan to do in the script.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is considered to be Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece written in 1895. His work here involves mistaken identity, satire (social/class rankings), incredible wit and much more. It is theorised that this script was written in slight reflection of Wilde’s own life; he himself led a double life due to his sexuality.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oscar Wilde is known as a comedic playwright to much of the world, although his plays address issues with contemporary society in a nonchalant way by turning these issues into a joke. In The Importance Of Being Earnest Wilde uses irony and mockery to ridicule the narcissistic attitude of the victorian aristocracy as well as to expose their hypocrisy, ridiculous social norms, and their sheer stupidity that results in a myriad of silly and funny situations.…

    • 201 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Various forms of irony are exhibited in The Crucible. Dramatic irony is just one of the varieties of satire used in this playwright’s ironic masterpiece. First and foremost, dramatic…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Puns are an incredibly hilarious play on words. Shakespeare use puns to make Romeo & Juliet more enjoyable. The sense of these puns are quiet easy to understand. Three of my favorite puns in Shakespeare, would be (dreamers often lie) I;iv;49-52 , (grave man) III;i;65-66 , and (give me a torch) I;iv;11-12. In the Elizabethan era puns were greatly appreciated. Puns always gave a great laugh to those who understood it.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The satire that is portrayed in the play is very obvious, however today requires to match with the context of the times, Wilde’s satire is centered in the aristocratic lives of the Victorian social system, this is first recognised when Algernon first introduced, immediately posed as a hypocrite, eating cucumber sandwiches that he told Jack not to eat, Algernon is also narcissistic , when at the piano he states that “I don’t play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression.” This shows how The Importance of Being Earnest supports Penny Gay’s view by instantly portraying the character as a self-centered aristocrat, by this point in the play there has been one stage direction, showing that Wilde was more interested in what the character said rather than how the character acted, this can be further seen when Algernon says to Lane “I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.” Further showing Algernon’s self centered attitudes, however this is quickly changed when he meets Cecily, calling her “the visible personification of absolute perfection.” Showing the hypocritical nature of the characters. Wilde uses this as a way of creating comedy by showing the corrupt morals of Algernon and infact Cecily, who will only marry a man named Ernest. The satire is more comedic in comparison to most comedies that involved shrouding the narcissism of the main character, such as in Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray where the Dorian,…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "The tone says life is fun. The undertone suggests life is a catastrophe. " How far do you agree with this model of comedy in relation for The Importance of Being Earnest?- Edward Braddock. The Importance of Being Earnest has been described in many ways, some believing that its dialogue is "wittily allusive and understated rather than downright comic" , whereas others believe it is simply a narrative driven by Wilde's deep roots in the Aestheticism movement. Despite the play being a comedy where the status quo remains when the curtain falls, the jovial and fun tones the play appears to have are paralleled by dark undertones- some more subtle than others.…

    • 1579 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The play also uses hyperbole to make its point. Every character in it is exaggerated. The characters Jack and Algernon are both willing to change their names to Earnest just because the women they love say that they will only love a man named Earnest. This is an example of how much emphasis Wilde believes that society places on love and how important it is to us.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The use of comedy helps bring books, movies and plays to life. In some cases, it is even written around the idea of comedy itself. The play Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde criticizes the aspect of the aristocratic life in the Victorian era by making fun of them with a term called satire. In the play, Wilde creatively uses three different types of irony. These being: verbal, dramatic and situational forms of irony. Each form of irony is used to mock the behavior and status of the characters, depending on their character and position in the society.…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Oliver Parker’s (2002) film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is sadly completely consumed by the romantic comedy style, masking Wilde’s key concerns and detracting from important comic elements of the play. This can be observed through the varying representations of characters, the film’s lack of contextual jokes, the more prominent sub-plot between Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism, the addition of music and the way in which dialogue, while remaining true to the play, has lost meaning in the film.…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Importance of Being Earnest contradicts banausic values in a utilitarian age (Varty 205). The comedy of manners and errors had a philosophy, which Wilde interpreted in an interview for the St James’s Gazette. It was “that we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality” (McKenna…

    • 2157 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest tells the story of two gentlemen who lead a double life under the name “Earnest” in order to win the hearts of their love interests.The play premiered in London’s St. James’ Theater in 1895 and is now performed in theaters throughout the world because of its timeless humor and whit. In his play The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde employs the use of satire to convey his criticism towards Victorian society’s views on marriage, deceit and duality, and gender roles.…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilde creates Lady Bracknell to represent society during the 1900's. Her tone is always earnest: she is arrogant and she speaks in commands, judgements, and pronouncements. She is always serious and authoritative, being the adult figure in the play; she imposes the rules and authority. However much of what she says is ridiculous, hypocritical, or self-contradictory. Lady Bracknell contradicts herself when she wonders about the possibility of Algernon and Cecily getting married and she does not agree with mercenary marriages, but she herself married into the same situation. "But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind." (604). Lady Bracknell is always thinking of money when it comes down to these circumstances. If Algernon and Cecily get married, they will share her considerable amount of wealth. "A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her." (604). She also finds long engagements not acceptable as, "They give the people opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage," (605). Lady Bracknell has this idea of making someone look something that they are really not. As long as you look good, that is what is important. This causes the women in the play such as Cecily and Gwendolen to live sheltered and uneducated lives.…

    • 885 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    With the definition of a satire being, ‘the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity’, it is ludicrous to even propose that The Importance of Being Earnest is anything other than a satirical play, as the characters relishing in the upper class of the Victorian period unknowingly mock their own habits acquired to them due to the luxury they are spoilt with. Despite this, it is evident that the use of satire is feckless and lacks a moral point of view, in contrast with the moral point expressed through satire in other Victorian plays such as Mrs Warren’s Profession, which ‘exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of the ‘‘genteel’’ class’. Ergo, we acknowledge that the play is an ‘invention of a truly serious work of triviality has neither ancestors nor descendants’ and was unique to its genre at that period of time, yet the frivolousness of the plot results in ‘the audience freely and genuinely laughs without quite being sure what it is laughing at’ – hence The Importance of Being Earnest is indisputably satirical, but a satire that has lost its sting.…

    • 1792 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    Discuss the use of duplicity and subterfuge for comic affect in The importance of being earnest. The importance of being Ernest written in 1899 by Oscar wild is a comedy of manners which was first shown to the Victorian society. Being a comedy of manners, the play includes many features of a Victorian melodrama including confusion, mistaken identity and a final happy ending. However subterfuge and duplicity is inherent in all characters and is the main source of comic value within the plot. We see the comic value of subterfuge and duplicity not only within the main characters and the cameo roles but also heavily embedded within the plot to highlight wild's attack on the hypocrisy of upper class Victorian society. Within the plot of The importance of being earnest nobody is who they appear to be and that is what plants the seed for the humour. All the confusion and farce that is creates right before your very eyes creates a comprehensive amount of dramatic irony for the audience to sit and laugh at, little did they know however that they are laughing at a mirror image of themselves. From the butlers - Lane and Merriman - to the very top predators of the Victorian social society such as Lady Bracknell, they all have a measurement of deceit hidden within them - all rising in amount - to reflect their social status. Other than the characters the whole plot created by wild was intended to exploit the hypocrisy of the Victorian social society. This theme of exposing the upper class you find in all the characters within the play.…

    • 2043 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The themes in Oscar Wilde´s “Importance of Being Earnest” such as hypocrisy, manners, dual identity, duplicity and deception are all closely linked throughout the play. One can see that the use of witticisms and hyperbole, combined with the themes Wilde commonly associates with Victorian lifestyle subtly, lightheartedly deride the audience. The effect of the theme duplicity and deception is essentially the criticism of the Victorian citizen. In creating the absurd lifestyle of his characters, he brings out what he feels are faults in society. The complications experienced by the characters are allegorical of the problems that the lifestyle creates, and the humour implicated throughout the storyline is simply to take the audiences focus off of the fact that they are being ridiculed. In this essay I will explore further when and why Wilde uses these themes, and how he puts them across in inoffensive ways.…

    • 992 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays