Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Oscar Wilde's comic play "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a satiric look at aspects of British society, notably the influence of social class and rigid stratification. The author points out that the play toys with the dual meaning of the sound of Ernest: How important it is to be earnest, meaning sincere, and how important it is to be named Ernest. The paper relates that Wilde develops an inverted parody of the stock romantic situation in which the lovers' devotion alone and not their names have meaning; the play abounds in inversions of romantic cliches found in epigrams and certain conversational exchanges, which are structured on the basis of a reversal of expectations. Includes many quotations.

From the Paper:

"To say that Jack is manipulating reality is to say that he is manipulating his own reality, for the play does not deal in what we would call objective reality. This is a world that does not exist, with people who operate on their own logic. Reality for Jack is always something of a blur because he has no idea who he really is. In this sense, his entire life is an appearance rather than a reality until he learns through a series of coincidences at the end of the play who he really is--he is Algy's older brother--and what his name is--his name really is Ernest."

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