Thinking Activity : The Importance of Being Earnest

                                                  Thinking activity 

                     The Importance of Being Earnest 

                              

                               

        

                 This Blog is in response to the thinking activity. I am going to write a blog on Evaluate “The Importance of being Earnest” as a comedy of manners embodying the hypocrisy of Victorian Society. This task was assigned by Dilip Barad sir. 

       * “The Importance of being Earnest” as a comedy of manners : 

•  About the Author : 

                                                              

                Oscar Wilde was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era. In his lifetime he wrote nine plays, one novel, and numerous poems, short stories, and essays.

              Oscar Wilde was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement, which emphasized aesthetic values more than moral or social themes. This doctrine is most clearly summarized in the phrase 'art for art's sake'. Besides literary accomplishments, he is also famous, or perhaps infamous, for his wit, flamboyance, and affairs with men. 

               Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 16 October 1854 to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane. Oscar's mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde. She was a successful poet and journalist. She wrote patriotic Irish verse under the pseudonym "Speranza". Oscar's father, Sir William Wilde. He was a leading ear and eye surgeon, a renowned philanthropist and gifted writer. He  wrote books on archaeology and folklore. Oscar had an elder brother, Willie, and a younger sister, Isola Francesca, who died at the early age of 10.

*About the Play :              

                                                               

                 The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London. 

                                         

                  It is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. The title also makes a reference to one of the romantic obstacles: the significance of being named Earnest. Like a romantic comedy, both the pairs of lovers overcome their obstacles to reach their happy ending. 

* Characters : 

•   Jack (Earnest) : a Young Gentleman from the Country.

•   Algernon :  Nephew of Lady Bracknell.

•  Lady Bracknell : An Upper Class Society lady, Gwendolen 's mother.

• Lane - Algernon's butler.  

• Gwendolen Fairfax -  A young Girl, also known as Miss Fairfax

• Prism - Cecily's  governess

• Cecily Cardew - a Young Girl, the ward of Jack Worthing

*As a comedy of Manners : 

                  "A Comedy of manners is a descriptive term applied to a play whose Comedy Comes from Social habits of a Specified Society.”  A comedy of manners is concerned with social usage and the question of whether or not characters meet certain social standards.

               The Importance of Being Earnest is an enlightening example of comedy of manners.  It makes fun of the behavior of Victorian aristocracy.  It attaches great value to hypocrisy, frivolity, superficiality, artificiality and money mindedness. 

                The Victorian upper class society judged things by appearance and the present play makes us laugh at those values by turning them upside-down through a language which is satirical, funny and witty. 

           

           The play centers on the questions of identity, love, marriage and money. Oscar Wilde's basic purpose in writing the play was to expose and prove as a sham the norms and values of the Victorian aristocracy. Society stressed respectability, seriousness and decency, but it was very different from what it appeared to be. What needed to qualify for marriage was wealth and a good family background. 

                  Lady Bracknell rejected Jack as the candidate for Gwendolen, after she knew that he was a foundling.  She gave last priority to his abilities and education and gave importance to family background.  When she came to know that there is a handsome amount of money in Cecily's account . She is ready to get married to Algernon. 

                     The two female characters Cecily and Gwendolen love their respective boys just for the beauty of their name 'Earnest'. They find everything in the name and love for the name. The boys prefer the name Earnest but they lack seriousness. 

                   It is a satire on the society that gives priority to appearances and surfaces. It is the hypocrisy of the concerned people. The dialogue used in the play is funny and witty. The clever exchanges between the characters are beautiful on the surface and hollow inside. The artificiality and paradox embedded in the dialogue well matches the sham and hypocritical values and pretensions of the people targeted by satire.

Thank You.