The Importance of Being Earnest

  

Thinking Activity

The Importance of Being Earnest

            This blog is written as a part of thinking activity on the play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Department of English, MKBU.

Click here to read 'Importance of Being Earnest' as a Comedy of Manners.

          

The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of love in particular. Through which situations and characters is this happening in the play.

            'Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People' is a play Written by Oscar Wilde. It was first performed in 1895 and published in 1899. It is being considered as the greatest dramatic expression of Oscar Wilde. This play is a comedy and classified as entertainment for Victorian society. Through this play, Oscar Wilde ridiculed Victorian customs and traditions, marriage and particularly the pursuit of love. In this play almost each and every character is having particular characteristics through which Wilde repeatedly mocks traditions and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of love.

              When it was first performed, this play was considered as a light comedy and classified as entertainment for Victorian society. However this day releases creativity that combines different styles. Wild is also known as gay. In the Victorian society there was so many tough lose on homosexuality. Many critics have also argue that this play had homosexual connotations.

         After reading the whole play one can come to the conclusion that through this place Oscar Wilde criticises the rules, regulations and manners of Victorian society. It should be also noted that he gives the opposite portrayal of the society and its manners to mock or satire Victorian society. 

              This play makes the audience laugh at their own values and beliefs. He also gives melodrama with the touch of farce. While going through the play, one can not say which genre is dominant, Comedy or Satire, because both go parallel in this play. While talking about determining particular genre of this play, Brigitte Bastiat says that,

"Wilde uses absurd and exaggerated, nonsensical language, paradoxical humour and puns. In fact, he invents a new genre, difficult to imitate, combining farce, comedy of manners, social satire and, I would add, “gender parody”. 

He further says that,

"Judith Butler defines “gender parody” as follows: “Gender parody reveals that the original identity after which identity fashions itself is an imitation without an origin.”

 

• Name Earnest 
• Marriage System
• Gender Identity
• Triviality of people
• Flipping Personality
• Female Mindsets

          

Name Earnest:-

      According to Merriam Webster Dictionary the word 'Earnest' is characterised by or proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind.

"If you are earnest, it means you are serious about something."

     The meaning of the Name Earnest is opposite to what Wilde describes through Jack.

        In this play Jack Worthing has a split personality by using two names - Jake and Earnest. Algernon uses the Name 'Earnest When he meets Cecily. Both the ladies are fond of the name Earnest. In act 2, Cecily and Gwendolen quarrel with each other for the name Earnest, as this name was introduced by both Jack and Algernon. This dispute arises because of another reason and that is that both Cecily and Gwendolen are deeply fond of the name Earnest. 

           Here, Wilde gives an illustration of the Victorian craze behind silly things. Both Cecily and Gwendolen are made of the name, not of Actual person.

Gender Identity:-

                Male and Female Characters have opposite nature from their Gender. When Lady Bracknell talks Jack she is glad to hear that Jack smokes because 

‘A man should always have an occupation of some kind’

      It is an opposite stereotype about women’s activities. Upper-class women were idle but sometimes did some volunteer work or some craftworks at home. It was assumed that they had “an occupation of some kind”. But what do we know about what men and women are supposed to do, like and dislike? What are men’s and women’s preferences supposed to be?

      Gwendolen says in Act II that ‘‘the home seems to be the proper sphere for the man’’. Well it sounds too funny if we will take it as an example to look at modern society. Though in the 21st century, so many things have changed about gender stereotypes, many times we can see that if a man is allotted to household work, people see it as something which is out of their syllabus. The same thing if we think about women who are more independent in their life and earning their livelihood, it is being highly criticised by the society. So through these dialogues, Wilde depicts what Victorian society lacks.  

            Throughout the play, Oscar Wilde asks the following question: is biology always the framework which constrains socialisation practices, making it impossible for culture to minimise, rather than eliminate, the effects of natural biological differences between men and women? This question is also striking in our minds even in the modern World.

        Oscar Wilde depicts women more superior than men. In the play, Algy and Jack are idle and lazy, but morally the women are not better than them: like them, they are idle, lie, cheat and are interested in money. Now Wilde also gives an idea of their similarities.

Marriage:-

           In the Victorian society, Marriage was seen to encourage social stability and moral behaviour, and allowed secure transfer of property within a family. In 1870s property acts was passed and women got right over their wages. 

        Oscar Wilde has captured this phenomenon in this play by the different perspective of women towards their property and its spending. The objectives of marriage stay the same from the beginning to the end of the play. The concept of marriage is based on Money, Social status and family identity. This is portrayed by the character of Lady Bracknell. 

"What is your income?"

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?"

"To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution".

             All these dialogues are spoken by Lady Barcknell, by which we can get that she is the one who wants that a man who is not wealthy or unknown from his own identity is not suitable for hee daughter.

Algernon says, 

“Divorces are made in heaven.”

This statement exposes the problems which were among a lot many married people and till now. People thought and think of marriage as a bound not bond.

Love:- 

       Love is portrayed in the play conditioned with the name. Love of two gentlemen is because of their true affection towards their beloved. Jack loves Gwendolen and that is it. There is not any condition of his love. He just wants her in his life. Algernon also does the same. But on the other hand, love of Gwendolen and Cecily is conditioned with the name of their beloved. In act 1, Gwendolen gives explanation why she likes the name Earnest, by her statements,

"It suits you perfectly. It(Earnest) is a divine name. It has music of its own. It produces vibrations."

"Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations …………….……….. The only really safe name is Ernest."

Flipping Personality:-

            Almost all the characters have double personalities. Jack has another personality named Earnest. Algernon also Bunburying himself. He also introduces himself as Earnest at Manor House. Both the Female characters show their double standard personality particularly when they come to know about each other's Earnest. First they go with arguments and later on when they both come to know that none of them have the name Earnest They call each other sisters.

Cecily: "You will call me sister, will you not?"

          Lady Bracknell does not give her approval to Jack's proposal of marriage. Lady Bracknell is, of course, a master of paradox in the play. Initially she rejects Jake when he appears as Jack and Cecily. When she finds Cecily has a large fortune, she immediately approves of her marriage to her nephew Algernon. During a heated argument about the belonging of Jack Worthing, Lady Bracknell confesses, "I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing".This time she is not giving her consent for the marriage of Jack with her daughter as she doesn't know anything about the birth of Jack. Jack refuses the marriage of Cecily as he is her guardian. The bet of Jack and Lady Bracknell is also amusing. He will only give his consent if Lady Barcknell will give her consent for the marriage of her daughter Gwendolen with Jack. 

"But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own hands. The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward."

      This statement of Mr. Worthing is also amusing. This presents how people look for their own sake only.

Triviality of the Time:-

            Triviality of the play is commencing from the starting to the end, throughout the play. Incidents like,

• Jack as Earnest
• Algernon as Bunbury
• Proposal of Mr. Earnest to Gwendolen
• Lady Bracknell's Arguments over their marriage
• Announcement of the Death of Earnest 
• Algernon introduces himself as Mr. Earnest Worthing
• Gwendolen and Cecilia's arguments over the name of their beloved
• Lady Bracknell's heated Arguments over the marriage of Cecili- Algernon and Jack-Gwendolen
• Miss Prism's past, where she forgot a child in the Clock room of the Victoria Station.
• That child is Jack and his real name is Earnest

          In act two, we can see the identity crisis also. Gwendolen speaks below dialogue to make her feel inferior and to mock Cecily's family existence.

" GWENDOLEN.

Perhaps this might be a favourable opportunity for my mentioning who I am. My father is Lord Bracknell. You have never heard of papa, I suppose."

            All these incidents make this play more sarcastic and humorous. The scene of Prism is rather sarcastic which shows hiddenly what happens when women start to read and write. Because during the Victorian era, women got rights of education and voting. 

           To sum up, throughout the play Wilde does not treat characters and situations seriously, thus debunking the very notion of seriousness. This showed that there was a lack of seriousness in people about seriousness. Wilde satirizes the Victorian society in a witty way where the audience laughed at their own mistakes. 

          Here is the whole play:-

  

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