...Elise Rivas The Importance of Being Earnest Timed Write Mrs. O’Connell Prompt: Write a well-crafted essay that agrees with, disagrees with, or qualifies the following statement: Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest is a satirical look at a variety of social ills that Wilde would like to see changed. Saturday Night Live, a show on NBC dedicated entirely to skits mocking pop-culture, never shies away from provoking an audience. Nor does the show hide behind fears of flaunting an opinion. During the 2008 Presidential Election, one would have to be quite oblivious to not see the show’s blatant endorsement for Barack Obama. Each show begins with a political skit. But beyond SNL’s opinionated nature lies a desire to poke fun at the meaningless, trivial features of society. Most of the skits have no depth, like “Debbie Downer” and “Opera Man.” Oscar Wilde, particularly in his play The Importance of Being Earnest, like SNL, is funny for the sake of being funny. There is no implicit message. Wilde merely desires to provoke the audience by broaching laughable features of society. One would be thinking too intensely if one believes Wilde was proposing a societal change. A main focal point of satire in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is towards the overbearing romanticism of relationships and in life. For example, Cecily, a young, googly-eyed girl, writes letters to herself from her imaginary suitor, Ernest. While explaining to her fiancée, Algernon, she...
Words: 695 - Pages: 3
...Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Lenka Drbalová Comedy of Manners: William Congreve and Oscar Wilde Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank prof. Mgr Franková , CSc., M.A. and PhDr. Věra Pálenská, CSc. for their guidance, advice and kind encouragement. Table of Contents Preface ...............................................................................................2 Introduction ......................................................................................3 Chapter I – The Way of the World 1.1 In General ..................................................................................8 1.2 True Wit and False Wit ............................................................9 1.3 Courtship and Love .................................................................14 1.4 Invention vs. Reality ................................................................18 Chapter II – The Importance of Being Earnest 2.1 In General ................................................................................22 2.2 True Wit and False Wit ..........................................................23 2.3 Courtship...
Words: 13764 - Pages: 56
...People tell white lies so they don’t hurt other people. Oscar Wilde uses satire in many different forms in the play called The Importance of Being Earnest. The one that is going to be explained in this essay is lies. Lying can become a second nature for some people. Oscar wilde makes fun of people for telling the truth and saying that they should lie. Lying is being untruthful to make yourself to look better. The two main people that lie in this play are Jack and Algernon and they lie over little things. They both lie to the girls they like and say that their names were Ernest “I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name Ernest , who lives in Albany and gets into the most dreadful scrapes” (Jack Act 1). This...
Words: 373 - Pages: 2
...The importance of being earnest essay "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People," The Importance of Being Earnest jokingly criticized Victorian manners and morals and attacking the society of the rich and luxurious. Oscar Wilde incorporated his own beliefs and ideology into the play by alluding to Victorian society "lets duplicity led to happiness." It is this "happiness" Wilde's play focuses on by concentrating the theme of the play on marriage. Alluding to marriage, The Importance of Being Earnest begins with the witty and selfish Algernon. It is Algernon who is the amoral bachelor and has not one problem with that because he believes that "divorces are made in heaven" and is utterly against marriage as viewing marriage a waste of time (118). The reasoning for Algernon's views is a stand in for Wilde's own beliefs. The aristocratic Victorians valued duty and respectability above all else. Earnestness a determined and serious desire to do the correct thing was at the top of the code of conduct. Appearance was everything, and style was much more important than substance. So, while a person could lead a secret life, carry on affairs within marriage or have children outside of wedlock, society would look the other way as long as the appearance of propriety was maintained. For this reason, Wilde questions whether the more important or serious issues of the day are overlooked in favour of trivial concerns about appearance. Gwendolen is the paragon of this value. Her marriage proposal...
Words: 523 - Pages: 3
...“Biography lends to death a new terror.” This is a quote from the famous writer of the 19th century Oscar Wilde, and the irony is that in this paper I will be shedding some light on the life and times of this controversial artist. Wilde was an 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. He was a supporter of the Aesthetic movement, which emphasized aesthetic values more than moral or social ideals. This movement is most clearly summarized in the phrase “art for art's sake.” The main focus of this paper will be Wildes early life, his various works and controversial lifestyle, and a bit of my personal opinion on this man and his effects on the world today. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854 to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane. Oscar's mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde, was a successful poet and journalist; she wrote many successful Irish verses under a pseudonym. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a surgeon and also a gifted writer, who wrote books on archeology and folklore. Oscar was educated at Portora Royal School until 1871, and then attended Trinity College in Dublin as well as Magdalen College in Oxford until 1878. It was during his stint in Oxford that he became an advocate in the aesthetic movement and while at Magdalen, he won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna...
Words: 1200 - Pages: 5
...Comparison Essay The literary works Pride and Prejudice and The Importance of Being Earnest are interpreted as “comedies of manners.” Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde use satire to criticize their own respective societies in their work. Both works were written around the same time period, leading to correlations between the novel and play. However, both works are distinctly different from each other. The commonalities and differences between them consists of: the author’s perspective of their respective society, themes, and relevance to the society of today. The perspective of society plays a significant role when evaluating how Austen and Wilde viewed their respective societies. In each evaluation, both authors share a fair bit of commonalities...
Words: 693 - Pages: 3
...Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art", and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The opportunity to construct...
Words: 489 - Pages: 2
...The Importance of Being Earnest—Oscar Wilde Plot Summary: 1. Mr. Earnest Worthing (Jack) enters Algernon Moncrieff’s flat in the Mayfair section of London’s Went End claiming to be visiting in town for “pleasure”. When Algernon informs him that Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen will be coming by, Jack, delighted, confides in Algernon of his intentions to propose to Gwendolen. 2. Jack and Algernon have a debate over whether the subject of marriage is of “business” or “pleasure” which eventually leads to Algernon confronting Jack about the “cigarette case Mr. Worthing left.” 3. Algernon forces Jack to explain the inscription on the inside of the case: from “little Cecily” to “her dear Uncle Jack”. Jack admits that his name is not Earnest but rather Jack, claiming that he is “Earnest in town and Jack in the country.” 4. Jack tells Algernon about the false brother he created as an excuse to get out of the country. Algernon tells Jack that he has invented a friend call Bunbury whose sudden illnesses give him Algernon a chance to get away to the country. 5. Jack tells Algernon that if Gwendolen consents to marry him then he will “kill off” his imaginary brother Earnest, as “little Cecily” is getting too interested in Earnest. Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen arrive. 6. Algernon tells Lady Bracknell that due to the illness of his friend Bunbury he will be able to keep their dinner appointment. Lady Bracknell replies by voicing her irritation about Bunbury’s...
Words: 3784 - Pages: 16
...Oscar Wilde: The Love Affair between Literature and Alfred 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. 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. He was tried and imprisoned for his homosexual relationship (then considered a crime) with the son of an aristocrat. Many of his plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest and Salome are translated in to foreign languages and are adopted into films and poems written by him made their presence in the list of bestsellers of his time and still continue to be read worldwide. The most celebrated novelist and author of his time, Oscar Wilde was appreciated by and acquainted with many influential artists of the day including English author John Ruskin, American poet Walt Whitman and George Bernard Shaw. Wilde witnessed an ill-fated downfall in 1885, when the author was arrested and imprisoned on account of his iniquitous homosexuality that made him leave his country forever. He was also harshly criticized for his outspoken atheism and active role in atheistic movements in the country...
Words: 2005 - Pages: 9
...K. The Man Who Was Thursday Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness AND one of: Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier Forster, E. M. Howards End, A Passage to India (plus the essays “What I Believe” and “The Challenge of Our Times” in Two Cheers for Democracy) Galsworthy, John. The Man of Property Greene, Graham. One of: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Joyce, James. Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses Kipling, Rudyard. Kim Lawrence, D. H. Two of: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The Plumed Serpent Lewis, Wyndham. Tarr, manifestos in BLAST 1 Mansfield, Katherine. “Prelude,” “At the Bay,” “The Garden Party,” “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” (in Collected Stories) Orwell, George. 1984 (or Aldous Huxley, Brave New World) Wells, H. G. One of the following: Ann Veronica, Tono-Bungay, The New Machiavelli West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier Waugh, Evelyn. One of: Vile Bodies, A Handful of Dust, Brideshead Revisited Woolf, Virginia. Two of: The Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, Between the Acts (plus the essays “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” and “Modern Fiction” in Collected Essays) B. POETRY The...
Words: 2557 - Pages: 11
...English 175-‐02: Introduction to Literary Genres Instructor: Aaron Schab aschab@uidaho.edu 209 Brink Hall Department of English University of Idaho Course Meets: Life Sciences South 163 Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:30 am – 10:20 am January 9, 2013 – May 10, 2013 Course Description In this class, we will learn about the basic conventions and terms used to understand and discuss the three major genres of literature: fiction, poetry, and drama. This class will help you understand the sometimes baffling world of literature, and is intended to provide the general student with basic experience in literary analysis. Additionally, I hope this class will lead you to a lifelong appreciation for (and engagement with) reading literature. Although this class features extensive reading and writing, it is not necessary for you to be a bookworm or a writing superstar to succeed in this class – if you ...
Words: 4621 - Pages: 19
...Narrative A narrative is a sequence of events that a narrator tells in story form. A narrator is a storyteller of any kind, whether the authorial voice in a novel or a friend telling you about last night’s party. Point of View The point of view is the perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. First-person narration: A narrative in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer. When the point of view represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional (see Common Literary Forms and Genres below). Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” • Omniscient narration: The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts...
Words: 12257 - Pages: 50
...http://www.historytoday.com/jerome-de-groot/signposts-historical-fiction These were some of the questions raised at a recent conference at the Institute of Historical Research at which History Today Editor, Paul Lay, hosted a discussion between Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, and the Tudor historian David Loades. Historians often describe themselves as detectives, seeking out a kind of truth among the conflicting evidence of the past. There is, furthermore, a large and growing subgenre of historical crime fiction. From C.J. Sansom to Philip Pullman, from Orhan Pamuk to Walter Mosley, from Ellis Peters to Boris Akunin, novelists have been keen to use the past as a backdrop for their stories of detection and mystery. The most famous historical detective might be Brother William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco’s peerless The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa, 1980). Recently we have seen a flowering of historical crime fiction as the subgenre attains maturity and becomes increasingly popular and innovative. Jason Goodwin, Philip Kerr and Susan Hill were all shortlisted for the prestigious Crime Writers Association Dagger this year (recent historical winners include Arianna Franklin, Jake Arnott and Craig Russell). Clearly the combination of thriller, crime and historical detail is compelling. Anne Perry’s new Inspector Pitt novel, Betrayal at Lisson Grove (out in paperback from Headline this year) is a pacy, twisting thriller. It is 1895 and Pitt is up against a conspiracy...
Words: 5212 - Pages: 21
...Enotes… Arms and the Man | Introduction Shaw was already a celebrity arts critic and socialist lecturer when he wrote Arms and the Man in 1894. One of Shaw’s earliest attempts at writing for the theatre, it was also his first commercial success as a playwright. Although it played for only one season at an avant-garde theatre, thanks to the financial backing of a friend, it was later produced in America in 1895. Accustomed to the melodramas of the age, however, even sophisticated audiences often did not discern the serious purpose of Shaw’s play. Thus, Shaw considered it a failure. True success did not come until 1898, when Arms and the Man was published as one of the “pleasant” plays in Shaw’s collection called Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, and it subsequently gained popularity as a written work. Included in this collection of plays are lengthy explanatory prefaces, which note significant issues in the plays and which have been invaluable to critics. In place of brief stage directions, Shaw’s plays also included lengthy instructions and descriptions. Another unique aspect of Arms and the Man was its use of a woman as the central character. Set during the four-month-long Serbo-Bulgarian War that occurred between November 1885 and March 1886, this play is a satire on the foolishness of glorifying something so terrible as war, as well as a satire on the foolishness of basing your affections on idealistic notions of love. These themes brought reality and a timeless lesson...
Words: 7430 - Pages: 30
...Министерство образования и науки Республики Казахстан Кокшетауский государственный университет им. Ш. Уалиханова An Outline of British Literature (from tradition to post modernism) Кокшетау 2011 УДК 802.0 – 5:20 ББК 81:432.1-923 № 39 Рекомендовано к печати кафедрой английского языка и МП КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, Ученым Советом филологического факультета КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, УМС КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова. Рецензенты: Баяндина С.Ж. доктор филологических наук, профессор, декан филологического факультета КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова Батаева Ф.А. кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры «Переводческое дело» Кокшетауского университета им. А. Мырзахметова Кожанова К.Т. преподаватель английского языка кафедры гуманитарного цикла ИПК и ПРО Акмолинской области An Outline of British Literature from tradition to post modernism (on specialties 050119 – “Foreign Language: Two Foreign Languages”, 050205 – “Foreign Philology” and 050207 – “Translation”): Учебное пособие / Сост. Немченко Н.Ф. – Кокшетау: Типография КГУ им. Ш. Уалиханова, 2010 – 170 с. ISBN 9965-19-350-9 Пособие представляет собой краткие очерки, характеризующие английскую литературу Великобритании, ее основные направления и тенденции. Все известные направления в литературе иллюстрированы примерами жизни и творчества авторов, вошедших в мировую литературу благодаря...
Words: 82733 - Pages: 331
