The Importance Of Being Earnest Moral Analysis

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo & Juliet 2.2 43-44). Shakespeare wrote these words to indicate that the value of a name is placed there only by the people who use it and no matter the name, it does not change the object. Roses are sweet in smell no matter the name and Mt. Denali is going to be the largest mountain in North America whether the name is Denali or McKinley.

Juliet is expressing her concerns that she is in love with a Montague and she doesn’t think that her family will be approving their relationship. Juliet questions why does Romeo have to be a Montague. During this soliloquy, Juliet also says the famous lines,” What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet”, meaning that a name is a name and a person is a person and the name does not label the person (II.ii.43-44).

In the play Romeo and Juliet, act two coveys Juliet and Romeo's Attitude toward names and what its significance really is in reality. Juliet goes to her balcony to express her feelings without prior knowledge Romeo was near. “Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

As a result of Romeo being a part of the Montague family, Juliet’s ongoing love for him is slightly pressured due to the name Romeo has been given. Before talking about Romeo’s name, she says how a “rose” would always “smell as sweet” if it had “any other word”. Clearly, Juliet uses olfactory imagery to demonstrate how a rose is just a name used to distinguish one flower to another, but it would have the same smell if it is named something else. Furthermore, she connects this idea to Romeo by stating “Romeo, doff thy name”, and this phrase shows how Juliet wants him to remove his name in order to “retain that dear perfection”. Evidently, this establishes how she thinks every part of Romeo is perfect, except for his name because Juliet is in

Throughout the story of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Oscar pointed out many oblivious actions done by the characters. He constantly used the characters to exaggerate actions of our society today. Wilde uses exaggerations to show how the characters were unable to be a complete individual without the face of the strict social expectations influencing their actions. Everywhere in the society, they are all unable to make their own decisions, and it is very hard for them to be truthful towards who they are without societal norms interfering causing them to lose all individuality. Wilde uses reversal to show how the characters actions were completely insane since they were trying to accommodate societal expectations.

While many have been familiar with the title of the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, one should also pay attention to its subtitle, ‘trivial comedy for serious people’. The play is a satire that ridicules the upper class to point out its fault (Kreuz and Roberts 100).The aim is to ridicule the ‘serious people’, members of the upper class in Victorian society. The characters were too attentive to social propriety and etiquette, which were as trivial as the comedy suggests in the eyes of Wilde. As they were too stubborn to alter the behaviour, the propriety and etiquette became superficial and meaningless. Their idleness and hypocrisy are other points at which Wilde recurrently mock in the play.

The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde is an excellent play which has many underlying themes and suggestions especially with regards to the Victorian era, during which this was written. Many themes within the play are reflective of Wilde and his life, including his secrecy and supposed “double life,” his interest in aestheticism, his life pertaining the mannerisms and social etiquette during his lifetime. Today, Oscar Wilde is often remembered in part due to his well known homosexuality trial of 1895 (Linderd, 1), but his “second life” per se had been speculated on for years prior to it, in fact many of his plays contain subtle yet effective implications towards a possible piece of his life kept hidden from the public eye. The Importance of Being Earnest mirrored this double life through the utilization of Jack and Algernon's “Bunburying,” and their motives for lying to the ones whom they love.

His intention in lampooning was for his audience to enjoy the irony and sarcasm of his work while criticizing the foolish view of the upper class. During the time play’s release, many critics wrote about their opinions of the play. Some critics saw his work as a fantasy, others said it was burlesque, but there were also critics who understood Wilde’s purpose for writing this play (Kohl 272). For instance, Norbert Kohl said, “He is made to laugh at the hollow superficiality hidden behind the mask of earnestness, and to mock the rich facade…” (Kohl 272). Khol clearly understood that Wilde’s purpose of writing The Importance of Being Earnest was to publicly and comically criticize the rich.

Art, 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

Juliet asks ‘What’s in a name?’, the theme of illogical family feuding is seen Romeo and Juliet cannot be together because their parents don't approve. This still happens today, especially with young

Oscar 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.

Relatively all authors are very fond of creating an underlying message to criticize society. Authors do this through social commentary. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is no exception. The author, Oscar Wilde, criticizes the upper class through the consistent underlying idea that people are often deceived by one's beauty and are unable to understand the poison that fills the world is corrupting it. From the beginning of this book, the social commentary towards the upper class begins with the structure of the novel.

Oscar 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.

- Edward is an economically independent man with a favorable status and influential connections still looking for a profitable match. Jane will be the one in charge to unmask him to the audience: “I saw he was going to marry her [Blanche Ingram] for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him” (Brontë 205) This manner of conduct converts Mr. Rochester from a hero into a villain, a perpetrator and “his project of

The lower classes were obliged to work hard in the factories and farms and make do with very low wages. It often resulted in friction between the classes bordering on social strife although it never erupted in a revolution the way it did in France. The injustice of the English society encouraged novelists such as Oscar Wilde to describe in moving terms the many hardships suffered by the common people and the many failures and follies of English life. Oscar Wilde’s great plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, incorporates some classical