To what extent does Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" conform to the model of the comedy of manners you have studied?

by catoharahotmailcouk (student)

Oscar Wilde's "The importance of being earnest" explores the life of upper class society and shows what lies beneath the aristocratic characters' mask of social artifice. The play is about reversal, conflicting love entanglements and marriage. He displays these subjects by using aspects of the comedy of manners. Wilde's basic purpose of the play was to expose and prove as sham the values of the upper class

Wilde achieves his purpose using many techniques including stock characters . Stock characters are stereotypical and reflect our views on how we perceive the upper class. Lady Bracknell in particular, is a conservative and elderly woman who prides herself on being a high rank in society. She is a target for parody because she negatively represents elements of her class including wealth, status and superficially. She wields power and has a list of "eligible young men" and a prepared interview she gives to possible suitors. In her home she formally interviews Jack Worthing regarding the possible engagement of him to her niece, Gwendolen. He admits that he smokes and to his surprise she is "glad to hear it" because she believes” a man should always have an occupation of some kind"; this in itself is a mockery about her values, or rather doesn't value hard work. Her attitudes are very sour “to lose one parent Mr Worthing may be regarded as a misfortune; but to lose both looks like carelessness". This unsympathetic response is potentially amusing because she implies he is a traitor to his class for not knowing his family connections as it in Victorian society it was a pride for the upper class to know all their family. This is a satire, confirming our ideas that the aristocracy are pretentious. In reflection, Wilde ultimately seeks to expose the upper classes of Victorian society as foolish, proud, greedy through the use of stock characters which are stereotypical and archetypal. Upon reflection ,this is a characteristic of the comedy of manners.

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Another characteristic of the comedy of manners Wilde explores is the popular topic of love. Such as Algernon, he thinks “Divorces are made in Heaven" as he thinks the “excitement is over after marriage”. This is humorous because the audience do not know how to react owing to the ambiguity of the epigram. An epigram means the opposite of what common sense dictates. Algernon comments on marriage saying it is an item of "business". This reflects the upper class marriage that lady Bracknell likes as she bases love on a business mentality, focusing on interviews and wealth. This is apparent when Lady Bracknell is very dismissive of the relationship between Algernon and Cecily, only when she finds out Cecily’s huge inheritance; then she changes her mind “There are possibilities in Miss Caldew's profile". This outlook is mere folly, because her compliments aren't sincere and it is impossible to determine a person's social possibilities by their profile. Owing to this, Wilde conforms to the comedy of manners as he creates wit because the audience are “in the know” and therefore can fully appreciate the nonsense dialogue of Lady Bracknell.

Wilde also uses the theme of love to mock the shallow views of the characters to reveal their vanity. In this instance, Gwendolen is an archetype of vanity who sees her engagement to Jack as an apparatus for her achieving social approval “I hope you will always at me just like that, especially when there are other people present. She speaks in a formal, artificial way as she wants the proposal to sound perfect." I am afraid you have had little experience in how to propose". She also does not base her love on anything logical or practical.“My ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest" .This emphasises the foolishness of the upper class. She likes the name of him, not his attributes. As Jack Worthing proves throughout the play, he is far from ‘Ernest’ and uses the name dishonestly. Therefore he does not really deserve a name which means "honest” .This makes "The Importance of being Ernest" a humorous pun, as it is a play on words. In this respect, Wilde does conform to the comedy of manners.

Another aspect of the comedy of manners which Wilde uses to create humour is through the construction of his characters’, he uses them as a vehicle to prove a point. Wilde constructs Cecily's tutor, Miss prism as a victim of parody to ridicule the aristocracy. She is a stock character as she fufills our perceptions of an upperlcass tutor as she seems well educated as she wrote her own novel“Do not speak slightly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote myself in earlier days ". We are greeted with a different woman when she reveals her past mistake to the audience. "In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I can never forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the bassinette and placed the baby in the handbag". Wilde wanted us to find this ludicrous because one cannot be so futile to misconstrue a manuscript as a baby. This shows that a respected occupation doesn’t necessarily determine someone as intelligent and clever, which was the case in Victorian society. This satirizes the upper classes attitudes to status and occupation which is an aspect of the comedy of manners.In comparison, her pupil Cecily seems much more mature and responsible “Well I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty when I go to evening parties" Lady Bracknell replies " Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating". The fact the Cecily admits to telling lies by concealing her true age shows that she is not ashamed of a harmless fabrication in the first place. Moreover, it also feeds into the idea that many women might try to seem younger and more beautiful in a social situation in order to be desired. Concerning this, Wilde does adapt to the comedy of manners by including satire of the upper classes views towards beauty.

Another way Wilde further adapts "The importance of being earnest" to the comedy of manners is by incorporating scenes of eating food in the play which are centred around conflict and underpinned by satire. For example, when Gwednolen and Cecily are having tea in the garden their exchanges are beautiful but hollow on the inside. "I like you already more than I can say". However, when they find out they are both engaged to Ernest they become bitter rivals. They both produce diaries of their own seeking for the recorded date of the proposal. This is satire as they think it is a fact because they wrote it down. From then on, they insult each other indirectly. Cecily offers Gwendolen sugar and cake but Gwendolen says sugar "is not fashonable anymore and that cake is rarely seen in the "best houses nowadays". This is a satire of the upper class manners as Gwendolen gives priority to appearances and surfaces over her enjoyment and pleasure. However, when they find out they have been deceived they reconcile and call each other "sister". They insist they should not speak first which creates melodrama as they did not mean what they say and speak immediately. This they say ,because they are annoyed as Jack and Algernon give more attention to fighting over the muffins than the ladies “one should always eat muffins quite calmly". It is hilarious that the men are fighting over muffins when the love of their lives has just dismissed them. In addition, it's ridiculous for grown men to be grabbing muffins from each other; they're acting like children. Consequently, this scene changes into a humorous slapstick and therefore conforms to the comedy of manners.

Wilde also explores the sensitive subject of death in "The Importance of being earnest" . Wilde does this because it enables characters to escape reality which leads to deception and romantic conflict; Which both contribute aspects of the comedy of manners in it. For instance, in order to withdraw from duties with his aunt, lady Bracknell ,he invents a fictional character called "Bunbury" who he must visit as he is severely sick. However, his sickness brings great inconvenience to Lady Bracknell and that he should stop "Shilly-shallying" and decide whether "To live or die". When she learns that Bunbury has died she praises Bunbury for listening and acting "under proper medical advice" This is a satire of the upper classes perception of death as Lady Bracknell thinks a person has a control in their death.

To conclude, in the end of the play we can see that Oscar Wilde indeed does conform to the comedy of manners and creates a light hearted comedy that universally all people can relate to and enjoy, which is why the play has been so popular for more than a century.

Bibliography

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York notes

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