The day after Dorians death from Lord Henrys perspective

Joycelyn Asare The day after Dorian’s death from Lord Henry’s perspective As Morning rose the sky began to change revealing its bright colours that were hidden during the night. Streaks of florescent orange and red shone as the luminous sun slowly climbed its way to the sky. The joyous morning birds began to sing such cheerful melodies that woke up Mother Nature; the tunes seemed to give the trees life as their branches spread wider and the warm breeze swept through its leaves. Although it seemed like a lovely morning, news of last night’s events has spread; the news of Dorian Gray’s death was on everybody’s lips – some spiteful, some sympathetic. Lord Henry had awoken, from a nights peaceful sleep only to have an abrupt knock at his door; it was his butler coming to inform him that Lady Agatha, Lord Henry’s aunt, was at his door, Lord Henry changed to his morning attire consisting of a morning coat, a cream ironed waistcoat, and striped trousers. With that he walked along his velvet rug towards the door of his bedroom to go downstairs and great his aunt. “Aunt Agatha to what do I owe this pleasure?” he said as he looked at her slowly rolling his eyes, “come, come have a seat,” Lady Agatha walked over and sat down with such grace on the rich cream armchair, she placed her hands on her lap and stared at Henry up and down as he sat down leaning back into

  • Word count: 1017
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Everything which ought to be of importance becomes merely trivial. Discuss "The Importance of Being Earnest" as a comedy of importance and triviality.

Everything which ought to be of importance becomes merely trivial”. Discuss the importance of being earnest as a comedy of importance and triviality. Oscar Wilde subverts Victorian values to mock and imply triviality of Victorian society in his play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. Wilde forces the audience to confront their priorities and rethink the importance of life while also scrutinising the ignorance of materialistic fascination of the characters in upper class society through trivialisation of the importance of life. Lady Bracknell’s character is arguably the main source of triviality in the play despite that fact she herself is not a trivial person. Wilde satirizes the ideas of marriage and personal fortune together contemplating how society views marriage as financial business hence Algernon’s remarks “business or pleasure” to introduce the argument of marriage in the play. “An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise pleasant or unpleasant; it’s hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself”. This displays the inversion Wilde uses to illustrate the idea marriage isn’t primarily about happiness or love but rather the “pleasant state” as Lane utters to Algernon and Jack in Victorian society also attempting to say the experience of marriage is judged on how many times you’ve been married rather than the

  • Word count: 1762
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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How Far Do You Agree With The View That Lady Bracknell Does Create Comedy in The Importance of Being Earnest?

How Far Do You Agree With The View That Lady Bracknell Does Create Comedy in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’? When deciding if a character creates comedy or not it is important to weigh up the pros and cons of their main attributes. For me, overall Lady Bracknell does create comedy so I agree with the view but as with anything else it is arguable. It is clear the her triviality, character inversion and Wilde’s use of stock character create comedy although it can be argued that she is nonsensical, used as a tool and only serves purpose as a parallel. When dealing with Lady Bracknell it is important to realise that her intellectually farcical dialogue makes her character the quintessence of the book’s title; she creates ‘trivial comedy’ yet is one of the ‘serious people’. From this simple observation we can infer that Wilde wants us to watch Lady Bracknell as she represent the book as a while in character form. An example of her character’s nature is when she makes a remark about the ‘unfashionable’ side of the street upon which Mr Worthing lives. She then says that they can change ‘both’ the fashion and the side. Upon the surface Lady Bracknell takes something as trivial as which side of the street he lives on and talks about it in such a serious tone that it creates humour. This also displays her use of witty dialogue as her quick yet humours

  • Word count: 1400
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Are The Contrasting Themes in Lady Windermeres Fan Important?

Are The Contrasting Themes in “Lady Windermere’s Fan” Important? Throughout “Lady Windermere’s Fan” we are introduced to many contrasting themes. Such as conflict and harmony, trust and betrayal and deception and truth. These are the main contrasting themes that Wilde has used throughout this play. The balance of these contrasting themes certainly improve the overall effect of the play, adding viewing value in the form of intrigue and enjoyment. However, are these contrasting themes important to the play and if so, how and why? Although this is a comedy, Wilde derives much comedic value from the conflicts within the play. Let’s take into consideration the conflict between Lord and Lady Windermere. This conflict arises purely due to a misunderstanding (when Duchess of Berwick tells Lady Windermere of her husband being with another woman e.g. “He goes to see her continually, and stops for hours at a time…”) and through deception on the part of Lord Windermere (although he promises to his wife that he has not cheated he will not tell her of why he and Mrs Erlynne were meeting), albeit for altruistic reason. The conflict is never really heated or serious and the audience can appreciate the humorous situation as we know that all will end well and any misunderstandings will be clarified by the end of the play, as is an example in “Much Ado About Nothing”

  • Word count: 1453
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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To what extent is Wilde satirising Victorian society in The Importance of Being Earnest and how does this add to its comedy?

To what extent is Wilde satirising Victorian society in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and how does this add to its comedy? The Importance of Being Earnest, subtitled, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a comedy of manners whereby Oscar Wilde rebukes the Victorian aristocracy for their social issues that seemingly prioritise the most trivial of things such as style and appearance above those of true significance such as. Wilde further achieves this by incorporating elements such as farce and melodrama in order to highlight their senseless main concerns. Wilde portrays the act of “Being Earnest” as being in opposing to its definition as having features of dishonesty and false morality, with one of the main characters Algernon stating that “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”. Wilde’s first satirical attack in the play is marriage. Algernon is shown to perceive marriage to be a business deal as opposed to the projected illusion of it as described in the play as being based on mutual feelings of love (evidence – Ceclily or Gwendolen). This is evidenced by Algernon’s sharply comical and paradoxical epigrams in response to his best friend Jack Worthing’s admittance of wanting to propose to Algernon’s own ward Gwendolen he states: “I thought you had come up for pleasure? ... I call that business.” Wilde is seemingly satirising concept of

  • Word count: 2011
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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How does Wilde use marriage and courtship to create comedic and dramatic effects in "The Importance of being Earnest"?

The Importance of Being Earnest Coursework How does Wilde use marriage and courtship to create comedic and dramatic effects? At the time when the Importance of being Earnest was written, in 1895, society’s stance on marriage was very different to that of today. In our present society, when some say the idea of marriage is dated and becoming less common, it may be difficult to comprehend how pivotal marriage was to the Victorians. Marrying for love is, surprisingly, a rather new idea. This was rarely the case with Victorian marriages, which were often business proposals. The aim of marriage was to draw profit and higher social status, and to collect the wealth of the other family involved. Failure to adhere to these expectations would be considered out of the norm. Even more rigid than this social rule was the class structure all Victorians abided by, which decreed that no one could marry out of their station, in order to preserve the wealth of the rich. As stated by K Danielová in her thesis on Victorian marriage, “The social class the future partners came from also played an indispensable role… Couples were expected to come from the same social class.” This is seen in the play for instance when Lady Bracknell tells Jack that he should, “acquire some relations as soon as possible,” in order for her to consider his engagement to Gwendolen. Clearly, she means

  • Word count: 1450
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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