A satire is a piece of work that is generally for the purpose of being humorous by teasing or being ridiculous to a certain group or an organization. A play by Oscar Wilde ,The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire that ridicules marriage, class, and gender. This play critiques the traits of the noble life in the Victorian time by creating a mockery of them by using satire. Books, plays, and movies are brought to life by the use of comedy. He uses various forms of satire to fake the conduct and character’s status depending on their position and character in the general public. In Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Ernest, he satirizes the Victorian Society which demonstrates their human weaknesses and flawed views in order to portray everything that was wrong with society.
Satire is displayed when the central character Jack Worthing is accused of pretending to be in a particular situation. Jack’s accusations are true because he has an imaginary brother known as Ernest. The satire is expressed when Gwendolen, Algernon’s cousin meets with Jack who seems to be in love with her at first sight. In order to attract Gwendolen, Jack presents himself as his fictional brother Ernest exhibiting strong, brave and sincere characteristics. Ethics are derided by the motives on why women attract gentlemen. As Victorians had morals and reliably professed in keeping spiritual motivation, in this case, “Gwendolyn and Cecily”, are starting to appear all shiny in their eyes towards men because their names are Earnest. This form of satire used here is easier for the reader to recognize when separately observing the identities of Earnest and Jack. Jack portrayed the actions of being earnest in the scene. When he says that he pities any woman wedded to a gentleman whose name is Jack and that the only genuine harmless name is Ernest, he makes up this lie in order for Gwendolen to be attracted to him. He follows the definition of being Earnest because of contradicting himself and through this, verbal irony is displayed in the fact that he goes alongside with this falsehood.
Earnest is a good example of satire because it makes the audience know a particular fact that the other characters do not know. For instance, the satire appears when Algernon made everyone believe that Ernest was Jack’s real name when his literal name is Jack. Algernon always introduced Jack by his other name Ernest Worthing. The audience is able to know about Ernest’s double life at the beginning of the play where Algernon already had a clue that Jack was his real name. Another satire is seen when Algernon uses a fake identity of Bunbury who is his fake friend. He uses Bunbury as an excuse to escape from his daily life by telling his friends and family that his good fake friend Bunbury is very sick. He also uses Bunbury as a worried excuse. The satire enables the audience to know that Algernon’s fake identity of Ernest is just a made up character. Satire is expressed in the story when both Jack and Algernon present their made up characters.
Satire has different uses that develop the value of entertainment in literature. It also helps to describe the difference between the actual and the expected result in certain situations. For instance, satire is displayed when the truth starts to unravel in the play where all the main characters in the play end up in the same room. Around the beginning of the scene, Miss Prism scorns “this bleeding edge wildness for changing terrible people into extraordinary people right away.” Foreshadowing also is seen when Jack finds out why he does not know his parents and what happened to him when he was a child. The story ends in an deus ex machina way when the audience and the characters thinks that miss Prism will turn out to be Jack’s mother when Lady Bracknell who is the deus ex machina asks Ms. Prism about a baby she had wandered off years ago and her answer builds up the story that linked events with pieces of evidence for example when she talks about a misplaced bag in the train which creates incongruity but in the end the scene is made unexpected when Lady Bracknell says that Mrs. Moncrieff who is her poor sister is Jack’s mother. The satire shows how Algernon and Jack later turned out to be real brothers just like they earlier pretended to be brothers in the story to play out their Bunburyism game. The way Jack reacted showed that he was happy to find his new found brother who is the same person that played the role of being his brother in their mind games with their families and friends. Many occasions in the play displays “Being Earnest” as a satire.
The criticalness of being Ernest by Oscar Wilde uses satire to mock the social guidelines of marriage, love and mindset which were very rigid amid the Victorian Age. Since it uses a joke to deride these establishments, it shows the anomaly from the collective solicitation by creating peculiar the contemplations of measures, morals and propensities. By endeavoring to address the imperfections of the temperament in the drama, this part in like manner fills in as a remarkable kind of examination. “The play genuinely owes something to the comic recovery show.”
Conclusion
Oscar Wilde displays his creativity in telling a story by satirizing the trends of the Victorian era by just using characters which are present in the importance of being Earnest. Wilde does not actually talk about the Victorian era specifically in the play. Behind the meanings of this satire, the audience has all the information they need to interpret their own understanding even though some of the characters lack knowledge about the forms of satire used during the play. “Being Earnest” firmly centers around people who hail from prosperous society and those from deprived backgrounds who put the highlight on negligible issues that touch companionships, Wilde satirically reveals the stupid and irrelevant questions that the advantaged community sees as being huge.
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