Satire is used in literature, and employs the use of vices, abuses and even ridicule to criticize individuals or a group of individuals. Wilde in his works used satire to put across his works to the audience. Wilde used satire to capture the state of social institutions that he so much portrayed in his plays. For instance, Wildes’ satire to marriage makes his audiences more serious about marriage, as he depicts marriage as a social institution for adventure. When the audience feels criticized, they shun away from the criticized virtues.in this way, Wildes’ plays gained popularity, as well as his way of hiding his earnest in satire. Furthermore, in his critics for the way people go about life, Wilde uses satire and elucidates how the upper class shows recklessness towards life and its endavours.in this way, satire helps in emphasis of Wildes’ work in a way that does not evoke wild feelings from his audience. Earnest can thus be best achieved through satire, especially where vast numbers of audience are involved, like the case of Wilde and his play.
Short Narrative of Wilde’s Play
Wilde’s use of satire and the importance of being Earnest is set in the present are exhibited in at St James’s Theatre in London St James’s Theater. Here a typical selection was relatively serious and this was itself a challenge to Wilde as he hesitated about submitting the script to Alexander explaining it had been written in response to a request for a play “with no real serious interest”. However, Alexander agreed to put on Oscar’s play after the play Domville failed (Wilde 13). Alexander was known for his meticulous preparations and often interrogated authors on each line they had written, and usually planned stage movements with a model theatre, to this end, Oscar was no special. They conducted rehearsals and the play was shortened from the original four acts to three, this was in effect from a request of Alexander’s. In this revision, the second and third acts were combined and the character of Mr. Gribsby was removed. Grisbsby was a solicitor for London with the aim of arresting “Ernest” for is unpaid bills. Of note is that the four-act play by Oscar was played in a BBC production and is still sometimes performed. The crater play and inferno here shows Wilde’s articulate pans to satires the audience. As reiterated before, Wilde’s prospect in any theoretical work is to make the audience lively and invoke their experiences to the play. Therefore, the end effect t of every play is to have a flashy moment, while passing across the message without diverting its orientations.
Based on the exhibit above, it would be said that Wilde used articulate satire to castigate the social and ethical attributes to the society. By the virtue of being satirical, Wilde used this rare hue and dramatic technique to give clarity to the social manifestation among people. Since love is a contemporary issue in the society, and remained a great issue of contention in the aristocratic society, Wilde used this platform to share a few similar and rebuke negative perspective of love in the current generation (Wilde 24). In this regards, Wilde would be pointing out to the mistakes that the society delves in on marital issues, by referring to the aristocratic society. The nature of mistakes that the old generation committed remains reminiscence into their lives, and significantly affects marriages. Thus, Wilde was being earnest in pointing out the critical issues that affected the society with regards to marriage.
The way Wilde used satire in his comedy were very persuasive, and ingenious. In fact, he relied on this skill to attract people to his shows, which were full of realistic views and perspectives of life Juts like the narrative presented above, Wilde invoked the use of satire I a deeper paradigm to pass a stronger political message about the society. In fact, it’s because of this style that Wilde was able to express his thoughts about the political situation. While castigating the Victorian Aristocratic society on its political structures, Wilde made relevance to the current generation, whom he accused of having poor political policies to manage people (Berardinelli 45). In addition, a lot of people would easily subscribe to his tickets as the shows were satirically mainstreamed in political presentations, which hold a greater relevance in the contemporary society.
The next point of issues refers to religion. Religious manifestation was a critical point of satire adopted by Wilde. By invoking religious underpinnings of the Victorian society, Wilde was able to make his religious concerns in the modern society to context, It would much hard for him to attack the society in religious grounds, which is a very critical issue, but he decided to employ the deepest satire to castigate this habit. Religious ceremonies in the Victorian times were coupled with undefined utterances and mannerisms. For example, Wilde uses Canon Chasuble as a symbol of religious thought to the Victorian times, which showed little care and attention to religious faith, and positive manifestation of these practices (Wilde 81). According to Wilde, the Victorian society would conduct sermons, while burying, and marrying, while these sermons had no meaning to the society. The use of satire here invokes some humor, even as he castigates this society of its inability to recognize self-important values generated by religion. Either, Wilde was being earnest on this point with the view to making corrective views about the religious manifestations that hold no meaning, and could not give proper directions. This view made his comedy as one of the unique plays, and he would advance the course of his theme by being satirical to the social and religious lens of the society by involving the bad practices in the Victorian society.
In addition, Wilde’s satirical literal perspectives were blessing in earnest to his comedies. In this context, he exemplifies the constant cultural uproar between the Victorian society and the French cultural standings. This satirical note equally invokes a lot of humor in his presentations as he intelligently gives the Victorian social take of the French culture. The Victorians held a belief that nothing good came from France, and it was as good as place for the Lesbian made. In this accord, Wilde criticizes Victorians for their apparent l belief on worthless hue of life. In addition, the audience who are still mesmerized with such antisocial practices becomes the first target to Wilde’s criticism (Wilde 51). Besides, certain documentation upholding racial supremacy of one race above the other does not hold ground in Wilde’s comedy, and what he inclines to is the truth and nothing short of it. In addition, the audience thronged to the show despite these sharp criticisms since they were interested in realizing the historical truths attributed to the Victorian society. The Victorian society is the current generation of people, and they hold a closer resembles. In this accord, Wilde was being earnest in his exhibitions by generating the reality to the unfolding discriminative practices in the society.
In summary, the prospect of Wilde’s comedy is based on the social manifestation of a society that is faced with a series of predicaments. Sharp satire sis a style becomes appealing to Wilde in castigating this society, which does not recognize its social values and for its people. In this context, the audience was attracted to the Wide’s comedies due to its ability to touch on very critical issues that affect the society, but decided to refer to the Victorian society. This actually made his points to be neutral, but secretly attacking the society in which the play is based. Social issues like marriage, conflict, racial matrix mainstreams Wilde’s pints of criticism to this society.
Works Cited
Berardinelli, James. Reel Views 2: The Ultimate Guide to the Best 1,000 Modern Movies on Dvd and Video. Boston: Justin, Charles & Co, 2005. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. Importance of Being Earnest. Place of publication not identified: Trajectory, Inc, n.d.. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lanham, MD: Start Pub., LLC, 2012. Print.
