Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest Essay -- Oscar Wilde Imp

Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being eagerWebsters dictionary defines earnest as characterized by or achievement from an intense and serious state of mind. This definition is subject to total exhilaration by Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest. The title suggests a treatise on the value of solemnity in everyday life. However, Wilde presents us with an ironic lay out that leaves us with the opposite lesson. None of the characters benefit from propriety. The least serious characters, Algernon and bullshit argon rewarded in the end for their frivolous behavior throughout the play, implying that on that point is very little, if any, importance to being earnest, excepting that you give the appearance of such, for example the promise. In several instances, even indirectly, Wilde draws back the curtain of convention in the prissy age and shows us the ridiculousness of such a passionate extension to gravity. Before the name or adjective is even used the lecturer is presented with two men, Algernon (the purveyor of un-earnestness) and Jack, his protg in deceit and jocularity. The discussion on their hang on personas escapades introduces us to the irony of the title. 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 was Ernest. You are the most(prenominal) earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly pixilated your saying that you name isnt Ernest. (Act I p. 14) Not only does Wilde sic the concept of being earnest into question throughout the play exactly he doubles the irony by adding such importance to the name itself. For Algernon to tell Jack he is being ridiculous by take a firm stand he has been lying about his name and... ... on priggish culture, the redbrick day reader is left with disdain for the earnest ideal. The characters rely on it only superficially. Through the play the meaning of the word is manipulated un til its meaning is befuddled and the remaining value of the word is to essentially mask the true characters of the batch who use the word (or name) too freely. The implication is that the characters in the play are silly as well as hypocritical, and as representatives of Victorian culture, Wilde is steer the reader to the conclusion that much of the decorum expounded by society is near as silly and hypocritical. Luckily for the proponents of the stiff propriety in the Victorian age, the blow of this conclusion is softened immensely by the comical nature of the play, and we are left with the lesson that there is really no importance in being earnest, but merely being named Ernest.