After learning about the Victorian Era‚ we watched the film/play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest is a satire comedy where the main characters‚ John and Algernon‚ create fictitious people to escape from oppressive social obligations. Before watching the film‚ I had no clue what the play was about. I honestly had never really heard of the characteristics and social classes of the Victorian Era. After watching the play‚ I now have a better understanding
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A Marxist Criticism on "The Importance of Being Earnest" "Excuse me Geoffrey‚ could you get me some more water. I’m terribly thirsty‚ and the weather out here isn’t doing any good for my complexion." declares the man as he sighs in exhaustion. "Right away sir‚ anything else?" proclaims the servant. "No that will be all." says the man as he waves off the servant. So is this the scene of yesteryear’s society or one of today’s‚ well in actuality it can be either. In today’s world the rich
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In the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde‚ one can predict Algernon will go to Jack’s house and that Jack and Gwendolen will not get married. First‚ one can predict that Algernon will go to Jack’s place. At the beginning of the play‚ Algernon asked Jack questions about his house. Then‚ later in the play he writes down the address Jack gives Gwendolen. In the play it states‚ “Algernon‚ who has been carefully listening‚ smiles to himself‚ and writes the address on his shirtcuff. Then
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Society is made up by a set of social rules. People within society must conform and act upon these values. Throughout the play “Importance Of Being Earnest‚” Oscar Wilde uses the conventions of The Comedy Of Manners style social customs critiques how society operates within restraints established by society. This paper will examine women roles‚ table manners‚ separation of social class and orderly conduct. Society creates social norms and values for women. They are then restricted to follow these
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The Importance of Being Earnest “The Importance of Being Earnest” is a play written by Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s. The story takes place in late Victorian England‚ where two young gentlemen take on the same pseudonym “Earnest” in order to escape reality when needed and to satisfy their lovers. It is a humorous story about how the fake personalities clash with each other and cause complications. A central theme and topic in the play is love and marriage. It is a primary force motivation the plot
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compared to the drippingly sarcastic famous words of Edith Evans in The Importance of Being Earnest‚ ‘A handbag?’. This allows us to imagine that when performed‚ Lady Croom has a similarly ‘sweeping’ and haughty manner to her voice which delivers the patterns of alliteration in the line perfectly. Her aspirates can be performed as plosives which make for a much more expressive deliverance of the line‚ as well as what we imagine being the steadily rising pitch in her voice. Undoubtedly this deliverance
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Secrecy In The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde‚ secrecy holds a great significance in allowing Jack and Algernon to retain their double lives. These double lives are used by the two to achieve relationships with the women they desire. Early on‚ the character’s will to retain their double lives empowers the two to develop negative relationships with each other. Eventually however‚ Jack and Algernon realize that through telling the truth‚ true happiness can really be found. Early on in
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Our concepts of class and wealth are usually coupled together—if a person is wealthy‚ we generally we generally view him/her as also being upper class‚ and vice-versa. This notion‚ however‚ is not present in The Importance of Being Earnest. In this play‚ wealth and class are rather different‚ yet they are so in ways that are not too surprising. If a character is wealthy‚ then they have a relatively large amount of money or land‚ whereas an upper class person simply acts a certain way. Algernon
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In her thesis‚ Meijers says‚ “Throughout the Victorian period‚ there was a strict separation between the public and the private sphere. Men were to handle public affairs and women were to take charge of domestic life” (Meijers 7). In The Importance of Being Earnest‚ Oscar Wilde employs a reversal of gender roles‚ including a shift in power that predates this movement‚ effectively challenging traditional Victorian views. He does so by giving his female cast‚ notably Lady Bracknell‚ Cecily Cardew and
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Gwendolen’s father‚ Lord Bracknell‚ never appears in the play‚ yet Lady Bracknell mentions him often. What picture of his life and marriage do we get from the things she and Gwendolen say about him? In ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’‚ Lady Bracknell’s offstage marriage is one of the play’s running gags‚ and Lord Bracknell is an instrument for Oscar Wilde to joke about marriage and the roles of the sexes. In the following essay‚ we shall examine Lord Bracknell’s personal life and marriage based
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