The Importance Of Being Earnest, By Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is, “A trivial comedy for serious people”, but it is much more than a simple comedy. The Importance of Being Earnest is actually a commentary mocking the ideals of the Victorian Era Society. Throughout the play, Wilde subtly integrates his feelings towards society through the use of his characters. Wilde’s commentary commences the instant Wilde introduces readers to the first character, and his mockery begins at the same instant too. Wilde manages to focus his attention primarily on the role of women in society, class distinctions, along with wealth throughout his play. From the moment the play begins, Wilde’s commentary on class distinctions is clearly evident. The very first scene begins in Algernon’s …show more content…
During one of the first conversations between Lane and Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest, the two men discuss the fact that Algernon’s most recent reception consumed approximately eight bottles and one pint of champagne, and given that champagne is not the average priced alcohol, readers are able to determine that Algernon has an abundance of wealth, which he loves to flaunt around (Wilde 116). Societal structure of the Victorian Era determines what class people fit into by the amount of wealth a person has, and those who achieve that are encouraged to display it as abundantly as they possibly can (Victorian Era Society). Algernon’s gathering consuming over eight bottles of expensive liquor is an extreme display of wealth, and Wilde soon mocks this abundant spending plus the showmanship of the upper class very subtly. Not long after Gwendolen and Aunt Augusta leave Algernon’s abode, Lane arrives with bills Algernon must pay, but he tears them up after reading them (Wilde 140). This simple gesture of tearing up bills while consuming over eight bottles of champagne displays Wilde’s mockery of the Upper Class in addition to society as a whole, due to the fact that it shows readers the wealthy will only give money towards what they think will make them look better as well as higher than everyone else in society, and bills are not one of those items in their minds. This also leads readers to ascertain that Wilde feels as though money controls the Upper Class and those people only care about spending their money on things that will put them higher than everyone else. He also felt that money determines a substantial amount of critical decisions the upper echelon had to
How Does Heathcliff Use Money In The Great Gatsby
1939 Words | 8 PagesIn both Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby money represents more then just wealth. Money represents power, social status, love, control, material, and even life for the characters of these stories. For example, Heathcliff goes to chase his own fortune after the love of his life, Catherine, rejects him for his lack of wealth and “social status”. Jay Gatsby chases the “American Dream” after he falls in love with Daisy and throws massive parties to get her attention. Both of these men use their wealth to not only win the love of these women, but also to use their money’s power to control the situation that they are both in.
Why Is Money Important In The Great Gatsby
826 Words | 4 PagesSome people think that if you have plenty of money, you have plenty of power. Others believe that if you have an enormous amount of money, you should bless others with it. There are just some people in this world who don’t let money affect them at all. Money is a desired thing in this world, but it can also make a person change. In The Great Gatsby money played a major
Why You Reckon Analysis
670 Words | 3 PagesToday, money has made many people believe that you need to have a lot of money to live a great, happy life. People in the world, especially the people who don’t have as much money as the ones that do, look up to people like popular idols, because they have money. People think they have a great living life with all the money they have earned during their lives. In the short story “Why You Reckon?” by Langston Hughes, the author uses diction, colloquialism and dialect to express the fact that just because people have the money to go out to eat somewhere expensive or buy the newest clothes, does not mean that a person is happy all the time and expresses how people in the town talks. Money is what makes the world goes round and everyone has come
Wealth In The Great Gatsby
2065 Words | 9 PagesIn the story, the narrator describes the rich as “different from you and me. [The rich] possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand” (Fitzgerald, “The Rich Boy” 3). The narrator 's description is very accurate, which is shown especially in the main character, Anson, who was born into a wealthy family and exhibits many of these characteristics. Tate, a critical writer explains that “‘The Rich Boy’ is not so much about wealth itself as about the effect of wealth on character, and the primary effect on Anson is an over power sense of superiority” (1). This superiority that Anson feels directly correlates with his upbringing because he has more money than most people.
Francis Aloysius Phelan In William Kennedy's Ironweed
1453 Words | 6 PagesEvents that unfold in a person’s life occur because of uncontrollable circumstances around them as well as their actions. This balance of power of these two forces is never the same in different people. Thus, people fall into two general categories, those at the mercy of the uncontrollable and those who exert more control over their lives than outside forces do. Francis Aloysius Phelan, in William Kennedy’s “Ironweed,” falls into this second category. Francis is a former baseball player in his younger years who know finds himself, at 58, living as a bum in Albany, New York in 1938 during the Great Depression.
How Does Priestley Present The Divisions Of Society
356 Words | 2 PagesThe play was written in 1945 by JB Priestley, just after the end of WW2 but it is set in 1912. In the Edwardian period people were very well dressed from the middle class upwards and very few people were wealthy. It was hard to move up the social ladder if you lived in that time and the rich tended to treat the poor in a very bad way. Using this he is able to criticise the attitudes and mannerisms of the middle-class people at that time towards the less fortunate. He can also expose the conditions that working-class people were working in by using Eva Smith and the Birlings factory.
Literary Analysis Of Oscar Wilde's Impressions Of America
718 Words | 3 PagesThrough this satirical writing, Wilde uses comparison of beauty and industrialism and juxtaposition between compliments and criticism to paint American social values as backwards and unappealing in order to dispel the glamour of a romantic American culture.
Role Of Isolation In The Great Gatsby
981 Words | 4 PagesScott Fitzgerald, social position is determined by the class you are born into, despite the loss or gain of money. James Gatz, being isolated from the well-off social group proves that he does not belong in the upper class of society. The seemingly endless distance to the green light on the other side of the channel, shows that there will always be something separating him from the higher class, even though he has all the money he could need. Finally, the elaborate description of Tom Buchanan proves that wealth does not make the person or the class, but the traits and characteristics, is what separates the lower from the higher social positions. Overall, in The Great Gatsby it is clear that wealth does not determine class.
The Importance Of Being Algernon Character Analysis
1029 Words | 5 PagesIn what ways does this statement reflect the Aesthetic Movement, which embodied Wilde’s artistic (literary) philosophy? What can you infer about Algernon's character by this statement, and how do the values and beliefs expressed explain his behavior in the play? At what points does Algernon’s behavior connect with the Aesthetic Movement? In the Importance of Being Earnest, many characters embody the central idea around the Aesthetic Movement.
Money Will Never End In The Great Gatsby
1318 Words | 6 PagesIn the Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan grew up wealthy and inherited all of his father 's money. This was another way that young men obtained money, through “hereditary wealth,” but it “endowed its possessors with negative traits… In fact, money earned without labour was an invitation to corruption (Lena 98).” Hereditary wealth, also known as old money, was also common in the 1920s as young men received inheritances as their elders died. This society viewed themselves as a higher class than the new money that obtained their wealth during their generation.
Class System In Twelfth Night
857 Words | 4 PagesThe rigid class system in Middle Age Europe was a primary factor that determined the course of events. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, there are underlying issues throughout the plot involving classes of the characters, and their roles within their class. While for the time period, it was common for those in lower classes to be looked down upon, Shakespeare uses many mediums to slyly challenge this idea. Throughout the play, Shakespeare makes the class differences obvious, yet creates certain character dynamics which challenge preconceptions. Twelfth Night is centered around a distinct and rigid class system, yet Shakespeare comments on its negative impacts, and yearns for a more fluid system, in order to create a more just and fair world.
Gender Roles In Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest
928 Words | 4 PagesOscar Wilde’s satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest, set in the late Victorian era, London, is a portrayal of British upper class society and its conventions surrounded by a strict code of conduct. In 1890’s class society, earnestness was desired; to follow the moral code and social obligations in order to keep up one’s appearance. Besides, there was a huge gender disparity between men and women. In the play, Wilde criticizes the social inequality and Victorian upper class standards. He characterizes Victorian personae making fun of their qualities; hypocrisy, arrogance and absurdism, ultimately the very vital state and lifeline of not being earnest at all in Victorian society.
Identity In The Importance Of Being Earnest
1172 Words | 5 PagesArt, artifice and identity is the theme explored through the use of the two chosen stimulus texts Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl and The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Wendy Jones and Oscar Wilde respectively. Art and artifice merge as Grayson Perry uses his alter-ego, Claire, to express his creativity and identity. Similarly, the artifice of an alter-ego is part of The Importance of Being Earnest, as the play's protagonists, Jack and Algernon, deceive family and friends by lying about their identity to suit them best. The texts used to explore the theme are a review for the Guardian on the Grayson Perry memoir and an excerpt from Jack's diary set before the events in The Importance of Being Earnest
Marriage In Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest
1653 Words | 7 PagesOscar Wilde’s Victorian melodramatic play The Importance of Being Earnest opened on February 14, 1895. Wilde used this play to criticize Victorian society through clever phrasing and satire. Throughout the play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde displayed the themes of the nature of marriage, the constraints of morality, and the importance of not being earnest. One of the themes that Oscar Wilde includes in the play is the nature of marriage.
Importance Of Being Earnest
1520 Words | 7 PagesLate Victorian poet, playwright, and novelist Oscar Wilde is most remembered for his flamboyant nature, sharp wit, aestheticism in the extreme, his imprisonment due to his homosexuality, and his humor. Unfortunately, because of his reputation as being an absurd comic, the deeper aspects of his works often go overlooked or are dismissed altogether. This sad fact does not only apply to modern readers of his works, but to some of his contemporaries as well. In fact, Wilde 's fellow countryman George Bernard Shaw once ridiculed what would become, perhaps, his most well-loved play, as being “all froth and no pith.”, meaning that it was, although amusing, of no real substance. The play about which Shaw was speaking, The Importance of Being Earnest,
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