Oscar Wildes Use of Wit
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest shows how the lives of the upper class people were boring, only being concerned with manners and customs, and so perfectly earnest that it was almost inhuman. It is being earnest that the play mainly focuses on,which is obvious from the title. Jack, in saying that his name is Earnest, is found to be telling the truth at the revelatory end of the story, and Algernon’s lie of being Jack’s brother is also found to be true when they find Jack’s real parents Wilde adds a very sarcastic wit to his characters in his play . The most obvious humor is in the conflict of marriage in the play. Almost every character has his or her own take and opinions on marriage. Marriage is seen as boring and a strain on a persons life. Wilde is trying to comment that upper-class society is very superficial and arrogant, who think that they are right about everything. Almost desensitized to what marriage really is and what it stands for. For example Lane makes the joke about how a married couple has no reason to celebrate to be buying the best kind of champagne. “I have observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of first-rate brand”.(1,p1) By far Algernon is the wittiest a
Marriage is such a strain on a person that it even makes them appear old and unhealthy. When Lady Harbury’s husband passes away Lady Bracknell and Algernon make sarcastic comments on her appearance. “I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger.(1,p8) As if to say that losing her husband was a good thing and is an improvement on her life. “I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.” (1,p8) Even when together, a couples’ lives are not the same in the eyes of others “No married man is ever attractive except to his wife”(1,p26). Miss Prism remarks to Dr.Chasuble and he replies “And often,Ive been told, not even to her”. (1,p26) Oscar Wilde sense of humor is very sarcastic and amusing jokes given by all of the characters. Like Algernon’s witty, playful sense of humor commenting after Jack tells him about how he amuses his neighbors in the country,Algernon answers ”How immensely you must amuse them!”(1,p2) Not only the wise comments the Algernon makes but also his views on modern life “More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”(1,p4) “The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!”(1,p6) Algernons views on his relatives are shown when he explains “once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations”(1,p7) “I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”(1,p15) Even his o
Some topics in this essay:
Importance Earnest,
Oscar Wilde,
Lady Bracknell,
Miss Prism,
Bracknell Algernon,
Wilde’s Algernon’s,
Lady Harbury’s,
lady bracknell,
modern life,
oscar wilde,
sense humor,
getting married,
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Approximate Word count = 1139
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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