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The Importance Of Being Earnest:
Wilde's play revolves around the necessity of telling lies in order to keep polite society polite. Is such dishonesty really necessary? What would the world be like if everyone were absolutely honest? What would happen to you if you were honest for one week?
Many psychologists, sociologists, and literary scholars consider Oscar Wilde's trial as the moment which marks the birth of the modern homosexual identity. Read an account of Wilde's trial or his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray and consider the social and aesthetic issues which surround sexual identity.
To modern theatre audiences, the title of Oscar Wilde's most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest, seems a clever play on words. After all, the plot hinges on the telling of little—and not so little—white lies, while the title suggests that honesty (earnestness) will be the rule of the day. The title also implies a connection between the name and the concept, between a person named Earnest and that person being earnest. The narrative action does not bear out this assumption but rather its opposite. Audiences who saw the play when it opened in London in 1895 would have brought to it more complex associations with "earnestness," a word which historians, sociologists, and literary critics alike see as, at least in part, typifying the Victorian mindset.
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, England witnessed a cultural and artistic turn against the values of Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901). These earlier virtues, such as self-help and respectability, were widely touted during the boom years of the 1860s and 1870s. However, people were less able to help themselves and raise their social standing in the late 1870s, when farming practices underwent a change which affected society as a whole.
Wheat-fields were converted to cattle pastures on a sweeping scale, and fanners suffered. While farmers were struggling, industrialists were profiting from their factones which employed workers at cheap wages. Factory owners and other businessmen formed the new middle class in England, and as they rose on the social ladder, they desired to imitate the aristocracy by owning houses in the countryside and becoming patrons of art.
As people began questioning the values of the mid-nineteenth century, artists responded in their own.....
Romantic Comedy
Most commonly seen in Shakespeare's romance plays like As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream, the plot of a typical romantic comedy involves an idealized pan: of lovers who the circumstances of daily life or social convention seem destined to keep apart. Along the way, the lovers escape their troubles, at least for a while, entenng an ideal world (like the Garden of Eden) where contacts resolve and the lovers ultimately come together. The plots of such comedies contain pairs of characters and conclude happily, often exhibiting poetic justice, with the good rewarded and the evil punished.
While The Importance of Being Earnest certainly fits this description, it is a play that is appraised beyond simple romantic comedy. In fact, part of the play' s wide and lasting appeal is that it so competently fits into any number of comedy genres, including comedies of manners, farces, and parodies.
< Morals and Morality
Much of The Importance of Being Earnesfs comedy stems from the ways various characters flaunt the moral strictures of the day, without ever behaving beyond the pale of acceptable society. The use of the social lie is pervasive, sometimes carried to great lengths as when Algernon goes "Bunburying" or Jack invents his rakish brother Earnest so that he may escape to the city. Another example is Miss Prism's sudden headache when the opportunity to go walking (and possibly indulge in some form of sexual activity) with Canon Chasuble presents itself.
Love and Passion
One of Wilde's satiric targets is romantic and sentimental love, which he ridicules by having the women fall in love with a man because of his name rather than more personal attributes. Wilde carries parody of romantic love to an extreme in the relationship between Algernon and Cecily, for she has fallen in .....
... Act 1 Summary
The play takes place in London in 1895, and this act is held in Algernon Moncrieff's artistically appointed, luxurious apartment. Someone is playing the piano in a side room. The music stops, and Algernon enters and greets Lane, the butler, who is putting out the settings for an afternoon tea. Algernon asks him if he has prepared the cucumber sandwiches for his aunt, Lady Bracknell, and mentions the inordinate amount of champagne consumed at a dinner held a few nights ago. Lane tells him that servants only drink the champagne in bachelor households. Those of married men have inferior wine. He leaves and then re-enters to announce Mr. Ernest Worthing.
Ernest is also known as Jack and that is how Algernon greets him. Jack tells him that he has come to town to propose to Gwendolen, Algernon's cousin. As luck would have it, she and her mother, Lady Augusta Bracknell, are due at any time for tea. Algernon doesn't understand Jac.....
.. Summary: Discusses the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest. Discusses how Wilde's characters lead double lives and examines their motivation for doing so. Explores the theory that the main reason is connected to the restrictive social etiquette of late Victorian/early Edwardian England.
The main characters do use their double lives to escape social regulation, although in differing ways and on each character different social pressures are acting. The women live alternative mental lives through fantastical journals whereas the men, due to their comparatively greater social freedom, are able to create alternative physical lives. Jack pursues a double life due to the pressures of rural, family responsibility. Algy does the same due to the authoritarian influences of his relatives and his financial troubles. 'The Importance of Being Earnest' was written in the tradition of the 'well-made play', fast paced and almost farcical plays peopled by stock characters, as described by P....
Have a nice day 
Wilde's play revolves around the necessity of telling lies in order to keep polite society polite. Is such dishonesty really necessary? What would the world be like if everyone were absolutely honest? What would happen to you if you were honest for one week?
Many psychologists, sociologists, and literary scholars consider Oscar Wilde's trial as the moment which marks the birth of the modern homosexual identity. Read an account of Wilde's trial or his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray and consider the social and aesthetic issues which surround sexual identity.
To modern theatre audiences, the title of Oscar Wilde's most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest, seems a clever play on words. After all, the plot hinges on the telling of little—and not so little—white lies, while the title suggests that honesty (earnestness) will be the rule of the day. The title also implies a connection between the name and the concept, between a person named Earnest and that person being earnest. The narrative action does not bear out this assumption but rather its opposite. Audiences who saw the play when it opened in London in 1895 would have brought to it more complex associations with "earnestness," a word which historians, sociologists, and literary critics alike see as, at least in part, typifying the Victorian mindset.
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, England witnessed a cultural and artistic turn against the values of Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901). These earlier virtues, such as self-help and respectability, were widely touted during the boom years of the 1860s and 1870s. However, people were less able to help themselves and raise their social standing in the late 1870s, when farming practices underwent a change which affected society as a whole.
Wheat-fields were converted to cattle pastures on a sweeping scale, and fanners suffered. While farmers were struggling, industrialists were profiting from their factones which employed workers at cheap wages. Factory owners and other businessmen formed the new middle class in England, and as they rose on the social ladder, they desired to imitate the aristocracy by owning houses in the countryside and becoming patrons of art.
As people began questioning the values of the mid-nineteenth century, artists responded in their own.....
Romantic Comedy
Most commonly seen in Shakespeare's romance plays like As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream, the plot of a typical romantic comedy involves an idealized pan: of lovers who the circumstances of daily life or social convention seem destined to keep apart. Along the way, the lovers escape their troubles, at least for a while, entenng an ideal world (like the Garden of Eden) where contacts resolve and the lovers ultimately come together. The plots of such comedies contain pairs of characters and conclude happily, often exhibiting poetic justice, with the good rewarded and the evil punished.
While The Importance of Being Earnest certainly fits this description, it is a play that is appraised beyond simple romantic comedy. In fact, part of the play' s wide and lasting appeal is that it so competently fits into any number of comedy genres, including comedies of manners, farces, and parodies.
< Morals and Morality
Much of The Importance of Being Earnesfs comedy stems from the ways various characters flaunt the moral strictures of the day, without ever behaving beyond the pale of acceptable society. The use of the social lie is pervasive, sometimes carried to great lengths as when Algernon goes "Bunburying" or Jack invents his rakish brother Earnest so that he may escape to the city. Another example is Miss Prism's sudden headache when the opportunity to go walking (and possibly indulge in some form of sexual activity) with Canon Chasuble presents itself.
Love and Passion
One of Wilde's satiric targets is romantic and sentimental love, which he ridicules by having the women fall in love with a man because of his name rather than more personal attributes. Wilde carries parody of romantic love to an extreme in the relationship between Algernon and Cecily, for she has fallen in .....
... Act 1 Summary
The play takes place in London in 1895, and this act is held in Algernon Moncrieff's artistically appointed, luxurious apartment. Someone is playing the piano in a side room. The music stops, and Algernon enters and greets Lane, the butler, who is putting out the settings for an afternoon tea. Algernon asks him if he has prepared the cucumber sandwiches for his aunt, Lady Bracknell, and mentions the inordinate amount of champagne consumed at a dinner held a few nights ago. Lane tells him that servants only drink the champagne in bachelor households. Those of married men have inferior wine. He leaves and then re-enters to announce Mr. Ernest Worthing.
Ernest is also known as Jack and that is how Algernon greets him. Jack tells him that he has come to town to propose to Gwendolen, Algernon's cousin. As luck would have it, she and her mother, Lady Augusta Bracknell, are due at any time for tea. Algernon doesn't understand Jac.....
.. Summary: Discusses the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest. Discusses how Wilde's characters lead double lives and examines their motivation for doing so. Explores the theory that the main reason is connected to the restrictive social etiquette of late Victorian/early Edwardian England.
The main characters do use their double lives to escape social regulation, although in differing ways and on each character different social pressures are acting. The women live alternative mental lives through fantastical journals whereas the men, due to their comparatively greater social freedom, are able to create alternative physical lives. Jack pursues a double life due to the pressures of rural, family responsibility. Algy does the same due to the authoritarian influences of his relatives and his financial troubles. 'The Importance of Being Earnest' was written in the tradition of the 'well-made play', fast paced and almost farcical plays peopled by stock characters, as described by P....
Have a nice day 
