Explore Oscar Wildes presentation of his character Jack from his play The Importance of Being Earnest; showing how this character develops over the course of the action and the message he gives to the audience.
Explore Oscar Wilde's presentation of his character Jack from his play 'The Importance of Being Earnest'; showing how this character develops over the course of the action and the message he gives to the audience. Stubborn, irresponsible and shallow: three words to describe the character Jack, from 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. In Oscar Wilde's light-hearted play, Jack is a wealthy young man, who is a main character involved in the complex plot(s). Throughout the play, Wilde slowly reveals different things about Jack so the audience feel like they are getting to know him better. The playwright obviously has strong views about people from the Edwardian era (setting of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'), and his characters are his way of communicating these opinions. Jack is a noticeable character and has very individual traits, which adds to the atmosphere of the play and makes it more humorous. By giving each character a distinctive personality, it helps the audience distinguish between the many plots because the more extreme a character is, the more likely it is that you remember them. He appears to have no understanding of responsibility as at the beginning of the play he says 'Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere?', when Algernon asks why he has come to the town. This shows he is irresponsible because it shows he just wants to have fun and
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest Compare and contrast the pairs of the characters: * Jack and Algernon * Cecily and Gwendolen * Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism The Importance of Being Earnest was written and published in 1895 by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Oscar Wilde wrote the book to express his opinion of the Victorian society. He thought the Victorians were too status conscious and too proper in their ways. Therefore, he wrote a play of characters opposing and over exaggerating Victorian ways. The Importance of Being Earnest was his most epigrammatic, and wittiest work and became his masterpiece. Algernon and Jack Algernon Moncrief is one of the plays major characters. Oscar Wilde has given him the most exaggerated character in the play and he portrayed as a typical Victorian but rather holds views contrary to the normally accepted Victorian values. Algernon's personality is outrageous yet he acts well in public, as he knows that this is what people are judged on. He lives in a comic world where nothing is taken seriously, he is light-hearted, witty and he disregards conventional morality; as we see in the opening scene where Algy and Lane joke about Lanes unsuccessful marriage and the dishonest drinking, on Lanes part, of champagne. Lane says: 'I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely at first rate brand' towards the end
What sort of society and values does Oscar Wilde present in “Importance of being Earnest”?
What sort of society and values does Oscar Wilde present in "Importance of being Earnest"? In the days when the play was set, people were spilt into three different classes. There were the Upper class people, who lived in an aristocrat society, who mainly invested from lands. Then, there were the tradesmen, who had "new wealth" which they made from their businesses. Finally, you would have the lower class people, who were the servants of the upper classes. The characters in the play are leading a comfortable life. They live in a sophisticated life style, where everything for them is a breeze, they have servants to do all the work for them, while they sit and relax. They lead a superior life style, everyone under them has to look up to them. The lower classes are expected to respect them. In act 1, when Lady Bracknell visits Algernon, he had eaten all the cucumber sandwiches, which were especially made for her. As a good and loyal servant should do, Lane lies to get his master out of trouble, which is what all good servants should do. Algernon quotes, "...if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?" This shows what they thought of the lower classes as being their "guide to life". Lady Bracknell quotes, "Nor do I approve in anyway of the modern sympathy with invalids" when speaking to Algernon about Mr Bunbury. She says this with
What sort of Society and Values does Wilde present inThe Importance Of Being Earnest?
What sort of Society and Values does Wilde present in The Importance Of Being Earnest? Oscar Wilde presents a very candid impression of Victorian society and its values in The Importance Of Being Earnest. The title itself represents the irony of the play. The word earnest works on two levels- first the name Ernest, which is the main focus of the play, and also it sounds like honest which is exactly what Jack and Algernon- the two main characters of the play-are not. There are four main themes which can be recognised in the play: social snobbery, money matters, appearance matters and false values and lastly, not being sincere. In this essay I intend to focus on each category to highlight the society Wilde describes and the values he portrays. These will be backed up by quotations from the play. The first theme I shall look at is social snobbery. Social snobbery is where one class looks down on a lower class for example upper class people regarding the lower class as one to provide services for them. In the play Wilde often describes the social snobbery of the characters, Lady Bracknell being a prime example. She considers the lower class as inferior to her, as can be demonstrated in her interrogation with Jack in act one. She asks him if he knows everything or nothing. She goes on to say 'The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in
The characters in the play are paired. Compare and contrast Jack and Algernon,
English Coursework Question The characters in the play are paired. Compare and contrast Jack and Algernon, . Introduction In this Essay I will compare and contrast the characters of Jack and Algernon. I will do this by looking at their behaviour and attitudes towards f food, marriage, women, social class, education and money. I will endeavour to show that these characters are not dissimilar as we might first be led to believe. I will use both the text as well as the modern film version to prove my ideas. Algernon Moncrief lives in an expensive flat located in Half-Moon Street. He is a very emotive character just like Wilde himself. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. We think he is rich, which, however, soon, especially in the modern film version, is proven to be wrong. Right at the start people who he owes money chase him. Also his butler Lane complains about him not paying his lone. Algernon comes from a rich family. His aunt, Augusta Bracknell, is very rich. In order to keep up his live style and his place in society he has to dine with his aunt a fair few times. Too often in his opinion. "...I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough" It shows us that Algernon expects a lot, a high standard of living but is not prepared to do anything to achieve and to deserve it. He wants it presented to him on a salver. Dining with his
oscar wilde
In an essay of 4-5 pages discuss how Oscar Wilde's uses his stereotypes and concepts from traditional fairy tales and inverts them in his short stories. Oscar Wilde's fairy tales were written in Victorian times and reflects the era of Victorian regime in his stories. The appearance is shown the most important thing and conflict between rich and poor with people having no civil responsibilities at all are often seen in Wilde's stories. A fairy tale is more like a wonder tale, involving many artificial things and elements, although it is not necessarily about fairies. Traditional fairy tales often have the same beginning and ending including good and evil or positive and negative. Heroes are often described as brave, courageous and handsome where as heroines are likely to be described as beautiful. The evil characters are wicked animals, giants or characters that are supposed to act foolish, rather stupid in the story. Whoever the characters were, they were supposed to be known by their outfit or descriptions. The common features included were fighting evil, rescuing, selfish and proud characters. Most of the fairy tales opened with a happy start, a twist later on and ended with meeting of two peoples or indicated with 'happy life ever after'. Oscar Wilde's tales contain many of traditional elements of popular fairy tales. His tales have characters representing both good and
What makes the play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ funny?
What makes the play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' funny? Oscar Wilde's clever use of language, characters, dramatic irony and absurdity makes his play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' very funny. Wilde wrote the play with intentions of making a mild mockery of his contemporary upper-class society's manners and values. He does this very successfully by having his upper-class characters over-expressing their manners and their language to such an extent his characters are seen to be quite absurd. However, not all of the humour comes from mocking upper-class manners and values. The plot is quite ridiculous and so adds to the laughter of his audiences. The final result of adding all the funny parts about the play together is a play that cannot fail to make one laugh, even though it was not written for a modern audience. The language of the play is probably the most notable point about the play. Oscar Wilde was very renown for his witty use of puns and epigrams. There is in fact a pun in the play's title, 'Earnest' being a description of good morality and also being a Christian name 'Ernest'. To extend the pun further, Wilde incorporates the two meanings so that it is suggested that someone called Ernest is actually earnest: "You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking man I ever saw in my life." To take the point to the extreme Jack Worthing
'The Importance Of Being Earnest' and the reasons why.
'The Importance Of Being Earnest' and the reasons why Oscar Wilde, a rich upper-class gentleman wrote the play 'The Importance Of Being Earnest' to try and establish a number of different factors. The play does relate to modern life today, sharing its problems, humour and irony with everyone. It is a respected and studied piece of literature, with very serious morals. The play is filled with wonderful twists and turns. It tells a tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who in order to fulfil their wants bend the truth and add excitement into their lives to avoid boredom. Jack invents an imaginary brother, who goes by the name of Earnest, whom he uses to escape the pure and natural surroundings in the country. Algy creates an invalid friend Mr Bunbury who provides a useful excuse to leave the town whenever he feels like it. However, there is trouble when their paths meet and the lies that they tell are really the truth, yet they don't know this until the end of the play. Both fear the loss of their romantic pursuits: Jack of his love, Gwendolen Fairfax and Algernon of his belle Cecily Cardew. The title in itself resembles a number of different points. From simply reading the title it displays a need to be honest and truthful. Yet we get different insight whist reading the play. Once we have discovered Jack and Algy's double life, comparing their lies with the title we
BY WHAT MEANS AND WITH WHAT SUCCESS DOES OSCAR WILDE MAKE ''THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST'' SUCH A MEMORABLE PLAY?
BY WHAT MEANS AND WITH WHAT SUCCESS DOES OSCAR WILDE MAKE ''THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST'' SUCH A MEMORABLE PLAY? Oscar Wilde's play makes fun of the English upper classes with satire and humour. The play focuses on two young men in love with women both determined to marry someone named Earnest. It tells the tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, two young men who have taken to bending the truth and in my opinion, only to add a dash of excitement to their lives. Jack has invented an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from his dull home in the country and frolic in the town. Algernon uses a similar technique, only to escape his town life and retreat to the country. However, their dishonesty eventually crosses each other, and causes a lot of problems with their romantic lives. Oscar Wilde makes this play, 'The Importance Of Being Earnest', such a memorable play, by including a large amount of humour in the play. Humour always plays an important part in a production as this one is, because if an audience laughs during the course of a play, it causes each and every member of the audience to feel uplifted and to feel a sense of happiness. Humour is brought into the play in several different ways. A main element of humour is portrayed through certain characters. The characters' eccentricity seems so out of the ordinary, and is stepping out of
The Importance of Being Earnest-" A trivial comedy for serious people".
The Importance of Being Earnest-" A trivial comedy for serious people" What aspects of late Victorian Society does Oscar Wilde seek to mock and trivialise? Oscar Wilde accepts Victorian values however he seeks to mock and trivialise the late Victorian society in his play- The Importance of Being Earnest. He described the play as exquisitely trivial, and therefore gave it the subtitle- "A trivial comedy for serious people". His intentions were to make people think more deeply and make them more aware of the serious things in life, which should be treated with sincerity, and the trivial things with seriousness. He succeeds in mocking Victorian life by trivialising certain parodies such as marriage, society, and aristocracy, and much more, by the use of witty paradoxes and epigrams. Wilde achieves to produce a pun out of the title, due to the mistaken identity of a character in the play Jack Worthing, and the 'earnest' behaviour of Victorian characters. The play pivots around the word 'earnest', because both women want to marry someone of the name 'Ernest', because it inspires 'absolute confidence', 'honesty' and 'responsibility'. Gwendolen: '...there is very little music in the name Jack. The only safe name is Ernest'. Pg 330. However Jack and Algernon lie about their names and so are not being 'earnest', although the result is that they are both telling the truth,