Hw Oscar Wilde Pokes Fun at the Attitudes and Etiquette of the British Aristocracy

In The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde revealed that animalistic traits can tint a character’s intellectual attributes. All of the characters possess an overwhelming desire which seems to diminish their morality. Wilde uses Jack Worthing’s animalistic behaviors to reveal that his animal self is damaging his intellectual self. The play is presented to show that the characters retain an exaggerated pleasure with food, which shows their pleasures in inanimate objects. Every character in the play is drawn into lustful relationships, thus mutilating their psychological self. By embracing their animalistic traits the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest begin to blemish their intellectual character which inhibits their overall

Human beings possess several virtues that differentiate them from other creatures and can use them in ways that represent their perceptions of social order. Surprisingly, Oscar Wilde believes that disobedience is an original virtue of every human and that it is responsible for progress and development. While Wilde’s claim is not entirely accurate, it is largely valid as evidenced by the recent events across the world, including the US, that have led to positive outcomes in spite of being termed and perceived as acts of disobedience.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet who lived an unconventional life during the Victorian Era. Oscar Wilde is lauded for his works, trademark wit, and the way he carried himself around. Arguably, his most famous piece of work is The Importance of Being Earnest, which is about two people who make up a person that lives in another part of the country in order to escape burdensome social responsibilities. The Importance of Being Earnest is an example of a satirical piece of literature. Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. Wilde’s life experiences greatly impacted the views, that he expresses through satirical humor, in his works, particularly The

A satire is a piece of work that is designed to ridicule or tease a group or organization, generally for the purpose of being humorous. “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a play by Oscar Wilde, is a satire, ridiculing class, gender, and marriage. This essay will describe some points from each of these sections, as well as give a brief synopsis of the play these examples come from.

Act III offers happy resolution to the problems of identity and marriage that drive much of the humor in the previous acts. Wilde continues to mock the social customs and attitudes of the aristocratic class. He relentlessly attacks their values, views on marriage and respectability, sexual attitudes, and concern for stability in the social structure.

Themes common to both works include social hypocrisy, the nature of marriage, the proper upbringing of young women, the “natural” superiority of the English over the French, questions of inheritance, the nature of a true gentleman, and debates about the proper role of the church in society, of the imagination, and of writers of novels. Wilde’s play offers very different ideals. In fact, it offers no ideals at all, except its paradoxical commitment to doing without them. As Wilde himself noted, “it has its philosophy . . . that we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality” (Hart-Davis 196).

An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Newton’s first law of motion identifies what is needed to produce change. Oscar Wilde shared similar observations when he said, “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Both Newton and Wilde recognized how force was essential in order to successfully achieve change. Although Wilde was an influential leader in the late 1800s, his ideas are still applicable to today’s world just like Newton’s laws of motion. The force of disobedience and rebellion has followed Wilde’s claim by historically altering the world and continuing to serve as a powerful platform for change.

Strange to us because in our book the character is labeled as Jack, so we are already brought into the play with this taste of dramatic irony as Algernon continuously calls him by this false name. After an extremely lengthy and humorous argument with this “earnest” fellow about whether his name is or is not Ernest, Algernon goes on to say “You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name is was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life.” Here, Wilde is going on with that Ernest-earnest twist that we are already oh so comfortable with since first picking up the book, as Algernon speaks he subtly changes from the name Ernest to the adjective earnest, saying that it would be absolutely ridiculous for Ernest to be anything but earnest in his eyes. He is not only speaking of the name, but also saying that Ernest is one of the most serious people that he knows and “It is purposely absurd that you are saying your name isn’t Ernest.” is Algernon’s way of saying that you don’t look like a liar, why would you be lying to me about your name? After all is said and done with Algernon and Jack’s argument about whether Ernest is truly earnest or not, Jack decides to tell Algernon the truth about why he is Ernest in the town and Jack in the

Throughout life we are told not to do anything bad and to not break the rules, however how is a person supposed to learn from what they do wrong? Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Disobedience in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is a man’s original virtue…,” through historical evidence this statement is made true because without minor disobedience and rebellion, we wouldn’t have the basic human rights that we have today. In the second part of his quote, Wilde makes a point that through the disobedience and rebellion of historical figures, social progress would not have been made, and the shape of American culture wouldn’t be the way it is today.

Today’s society has different views on gender and art. This is shown through Oscar Wilde’s life and time period. The Irish pPoet, Oscar Wilde, brings about new ways of perceiving life, through his works, beliefs, and struggles with identity.

In Nineteenth Eighty Four by George Orwell, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, the three authors describe how all of the protagonists, Winston, Dorian Gray, and Chris McCandless undergo many circumstances in order to illustrate the impression the protagonists do not know themselves until they successfully pass through the obstacles to find their inner self.

In Oscar Wilde’s play, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, we find many comedic elements strengthening his criticism of Victorian society. With a range of devices providing comedic elements, this comedy of manners is a play varied in its provision of humour. Firstly, Wilde uses satire in the play in order to mock society at the time, with the many ideals and manners of the people of the time challenged, the satirized theme of marriage featuring heavily in Act 1. A great example of such is in Gwendolen’s erroneous insinuation that men with the name of Ernest are more ‘safe’ in terms of marriage.

Oscar Wilde's, "The Importance of Being Earnest" revolves around the dichotomy of the true definition of honesty versus the victorian definition of honesty. It is apparent that Wilde's opinion is that true honesty is expressed through being genuine to one's self as opposed to putting on a front as is important in victorian ideals. In this work, Wilde uses humor to off-set the seriousness of the theme of the story. One who has studied this work can also clearly see that Wilde is using sarcasm to say things that would not have been accepted by society if they were said bluntly. For example he exemplifies in a very sarcastic manner the hypocracy that victorian society represents by the very fact that they pretend to uphold honesty above all

Wilde had an impact on literature. There are so many things that influence the artwork of Oscar

Having a double life plays an important role in two of Oscar Wilde’s works, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. These two works reflect a great deal about Oscar Wilde’s thoughts and ideas on Victorian Life. The Importance of Being Earnest gives examples and commentary on why living a double life is necessary to be happy in the Victorian Era. The Picture of Dorian Gray shows the importance of the double life through actions that take place during the book. Oscar Wilde shows that living a double life is necessary to be happy in the Victorian Era by reflecting his own double life in both works of literature.