Essay: Overview of The Importance of Being Earnest

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, a play written in 1895 by Oscar Wilde, was set in the Victorian era in Great Britain. Oscar Wilde used different forms of language and stylistic techniques to capture the interest of his audience. Wilde used farce comedy to manipulate and deceive in order to amuse the audience rather than make them think. Oscar Wilde did this by using language feature such as witty repartee, deception, and satire in order to focus on the life and manners of people in Victorian society. Wilde used examples from everyday life such as marriage and courtship, gender representation, and class struggles, to show the audience that the Victorians were living in false worlds.
Wilde was a master at the art of twisting the English language around to suit his sarcastic themes and in this play, he accomplished that to a high level, as he had acquired the silver tongue for words. Oscar Wilde uses satire to mock the cultural norms of marriage and love both of whom had morals, which were very strict during the Victorian Age. for example, to quote from the play, “My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!” Wilde centres this play mainly around marriage and courtship within the Victorian society.
In Victorian society, a women’s position and role in their homes is to manage their families and take care of the children. A woman’s career was seen as nothing else but her marriage and family, the number of strict social rules stated the courtship stage. For example, a woman could never be alone with a gentleman. Wilde’s play is a satire because it makes fun of his characters most of whom were members of the aristocratic class. Think about how lady Bracknell is, and how fond she is of scandals. When lady Bracknell arrives late at Algernon’s place she explains that she was visiting lady Harbury, “who looks quite twenty years younger” since her poor husband’s death”. Wilde constantly exaggerates the upper classes shallowness and foolishness to show how the corrupt morals they provide. Satire was not the only way that Oscar Wilde used to make a mockery of the Victorian society he also used different stylistic techniques such as deception and witty repartee.
Wilde seems to have been toying with audiences by giving the play a title with more than one meaning. The play’s title can be deceptive. Rather than a form of the name Ernest, the title implies earnestness as a quality one should seek to acquire, as in being honest, sincere, sober, and serious. Throughout the play, Ernest is a name that encompasses qualities of the ideal man deeply trustworthy, truly loving, honourable and passionate, and absolutely sincere. Gwendolyn says, “We live in an age of ideas and my ideal has always been to love someone of the names of Ernest. The only really safe name is Ernest.” That both Gwendolyn and Cecily dream of marrying a man named Ernest seems more than a coincidence. Cecily admits, “It had always been a girlish dream of mine to love someone whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence.”
Not surprisingly, few characters hold honesty in high regard. However, we see how hard it is for them to set things straight once they’ve lied about them. As the situation gets increasingly complicated, in this play characters must weave more complex lies to get out of the tangles of their previous lies. Eventually, they reach the point where lies will no longer work and the truth is revealed. However, the most striking thing is that none of the characters ever show true remorse or guilt about lying.
Oscar Wilde is an incredibly funny and witty writer. His humour in The Importance of Being Earnest relies on creating absurd situations and conditions and characters whose lack of insight causes them to respond to these situations in inappropriate ways. There are examples of witty repartee in nearly every part of play. Witty repartee was not only used to make a mockery of the Victorian society it was also used to outline how rude and hypercritical they were. For example, the butler lane, even though he was seen as just a butler to the upper class. He held quite a high position within the household as he in charge of managing the household. Since he had been with that household for reasonably good amount of time, he was able to speak his mind in a refined way that didn’t criticize or offend them.
In his play Oscar Wilde made use of a variety of comic techniques to create humour and amuse his audiences. it is important to remember that he only used selective elements and aspects of the different genres of comedy and then combined them with social satire, irony, witty repartee, deception, etc. to create his particular style of sophisticated humour. In conclusion wilde has used technical language feature such as satire, deception and witty repartee to get this story across, to point how the Victorian society were very arrogant.
Word count 860
2019-2-26-1551144368