Oscar Wilde is a unique representative of the Victorian era in the English literature. The most valuable ideas of his works are rejection of egoism, permissiveness of personality, ethics and moral principles. All of these them Wilde illustrates in his play “The Importance of Being Earnest”.
There is something exceptionally ironical in the title of the play itself. It may be interpreted for the both meanings of the word – as a treat of character that lacks practically every person in the play, and as a name of the fictional and at the same time real character of it. The point is the reader has no need to choose between two. While reading the play the reader is to percept the events and dialogues in two ways – that is the only way to catch the nontrivial idea Oscar Wilde so genially reproduces on the pages of “The Importance of Being Earnest”. With the title of the play Wilde shows his contempt for hypocritical morality. The word “earnest” implies seriousness, solemnity and propriety; but what Wilde actually presents is an ironic reversal of that (Hazra 3).
“The Importance of Being Earnest” is written in Wilde’s remarkable writing style. Critics call it an intellectual kind of comedy “too intellectual to be described simply as a farce” (Foster 19). Full of humor and irony with an air of wittiness, Wilde’s play contrasts the formality and morality of Victorian era society, and thus provides a mirror image of the late Victorian upper class life.
Wilde criticizes the fraud seriousness and hypocritical morality of this class, and he treats peculiarly the quality of ‘earnestness’ in the context of the Victorian era. The author focuses on the identity, class relations, marriage and other general issues.
Wilde invites us to a short, but captivating journey to the world of his imagination, but incredibly true to be real. This world with its ordinary people and their human weaknesses, satirically emphasized and slightly exaggerated, are nevertheless laughed at “as representations of real excesses” (Foster 19). These assumed Wilde’s characters appear before the reader more realistic than the common idea of a person of the Victorian era is. Wilde demonstrates how turned over everything in this world is, how controversial people’s personalities are, and how the common image of an era changes once you take a look at it from another angle.
Wilde’s play hinges on the issue of so called “Bunburyism”, which is in fact the assuming of misleading identities. Drawing the appearance of the Victorian gentlemen, Wilde presents Jack (whose real name is Earnest) and his friend Algernon, who, as a matter of fact, are not earnest at all; they both live their double lives and seem to be fully satisfied with them. Earnest's serious manner and Algernon's slightly cynical, slightly rakish worldliness seem to confirm that in their different ways these young men will have this social masterfulness (Jordan 102). Victorian ladies are the ones who arrange marriages for themselves and seem to be more daring of making declarations of love, than men. Inverted relationships and personalities is the norm of the play (Jordan 102). In the second act of the play Gwendolen says: “I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is engaged to be married to any one.”; that phrase ironically reflects the uncertainty of an era and inconsistency of people’s actions and personalities (Wilde 46). Thus Wilde takes the advantage of criticizing “the internal collapse of the make-belief culture of the late Victorian society” (Hazra 3).
The dialogues between the characters are nothing but “the exercise of wit” (Foster 19). Possessing a fitting sense of humor, so naturally presented, and staying ironical about themselves and others, the characters seem to have that for the only way to live in their present consequences. Perhaps, one should mark that the moral principles of all the people in the play are equally disputable. Wilde uses their verbal wit to explode the ridiculousness of the vanities, the hypocrisies, and the idleness of the upper classes (Foster 19). With the phrase “The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.” Wilde leads us to the very essence of the moral foundations of the Victorian society (Wilde 10). The characters make fools of themselves and of others, they lie, they cheat, but at the same time they love with that humorous attitude as if they derided each other. The sham hypocritical morality “which the Victorians practiced under the garb of “earnestness” is totally done away within this play” (Hazra 4). Wilde’s ironical writing style contributes a lot to delivering the main idea of the play in a proper way.
The events described in the play take place in the country that actually exists on the world’s map, and all the geographical regions named are also existent. One may find it rather interesting of Wilde, who puts exaggerated characters into the realistic environment. That contradiction even strengthens the ironical essence of the characters, brightens the traits Wilde wants to draw readers’ attention to, and contributes to better understanding of the author’s idea.
Wilde makes parodies of people in spite of involving the real “earnest” characters. His traps them to absurd situations to show how their sense of humor and light attitude to life’s difficulties, help them in becoming the happier people. The massive presence of both parody and paradox in Wilde's masterpiece is not coincidental (Nassar). Everything the characters do or say to each other seem absurd at first; and some reader may percept Wilde’s play as nothing, but a joke of the author, pertinent or not. Of course, then you realize that there's a lot more in this play than meets the eye.
People tend to think commonly that the valuable lesson they may learn only from serious things. Their general idea of something really important equals something serious. With his play “The Importance of Being Earnest” Wilde tries to break that stereotype, which is far from reality. One must merit the ingenuity of his play, masterly reflected personalities of the characters, ironical representation of the relationships and events, perfectly polished dialogues, and that unbearably fascinating air of humor the play is saturated with.
“The Importance of Being Earnest” is one real Wilde’s masterpiece. Wilde choses eternal truths for his play, considers them ironically, and, as a real genius of his genre, he creates an ideal tale about people with a touch humor in every scene. So far, people still admire his glorious play, more than hundred years after he wrote it.
Works Cited
- Foster, Richard. “Wilde as a Parodist: A Second Look at The Importance of Being Earnest.” College English 18.1 (1956): 18-23. JSTOR. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
- Hazra, Suchismita. “Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest: A Critique of The Victorian Society.” PARIPEX – Indian Journal of Research Volume 2, Issue 1 (2013): 3 - 4. Theglobaljournals. Web. 11 Dec 2013.
- Jordan, Robert, J. “Satire and Fantasy in Wilde's “The Importance of Being Earnest”.” ARIEL: A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LITERATURE Vol 1, No 3 (1970): 101-109. Ariel.ucalgary. Web. 11 Dec 2013.
- Nassar, Christoper S. “Some Remarks on “Parody, Paradox and Play in The Importance of Being Earnest”.” Connotations. A Journal for Critical Debate 14.1-3 (2004/2005): 173-76. Connotations.uni-tuebingen. Web. 11 Dec 2013.
- Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2005. Print.
