The Importance of Being Earnest Review

'The Importance of Being Earnest' Review ​​The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wildes most well-known and best-loved play, as well as being an enormous success in his lifetime. For many people, it is the apogee of Wildes work. Like Wilde, the play is the very embodiment of fin de sieclà © British dandyism. However, this seemingly frivolous play has a much darker side. Its critique of Victorian societythough delivered in a velvet gloveis every inch an iron fist. The play is a satire both of the hypocrisies of the society in which Wilde lived, and the damaging effect that these hypocrisies can have on the souls of those live under their rule. Wilde was to become one of those souls shortly after the first performance of the play when he initiated a libel trial that was to lead to his imprisonment for being a homosexual.​ Overview ofThe Importance of Being Earnest The play is based around two young men, one of whom is an upright young man called Jack who lives in the country. However, in order to escape the drudgery of his highly conservative lifestyle, he has created an alter-ego, Ernest, who has all kinds of reprobate fun in London. Jack says he often has to visit his poor brother Ernest, which gives him his opportunity to escape his boring life and have fun with his good friend, Algernon. However, Algernon comes to suspect that Jack is leading a double life when he finds a personal message in one of Jack’s cigarette cases. Jack makes a clean breast of his life, including the fact that he has a young and attractive ward by the name of Cecily Cardew back on his estate in Gloucestershire. This piques Algernons interest and, uninvited, he turns up on the estate pretending to be Jack’s brotherthe reprobate Ernestin order to woo Cecily. In the meantime, Jacks fiancà ©e, (and Algernons cousin) Gwendolen has also arrived, and Jack admits to her that he is, in fact, not called Ernest, but is called Jack. Algernon, despite his better judgment, also confesses to Cecily that his name is not Ernest either. This causes a good deal of trouble in our heroes love lives, as both women have a rather strange attachment to the name Ernest, and cannot consider marrying anyone who does not go by that name. There is another impediment to the marriages. Gwendolens mother, Lady Bracknell, will not countenance her daughter marrying someone of Jacks social status (he was an orphan who was found by his adoptive parents in a handbag at Kings Cross Station). As Jack is Cecilys guardian, he will not allow her to marry Algernon unless his aunt, Lady Bracknell changes her mind. This seemingly irresolvable conundrum becomes brilliantly solved when, on inspection of the handbag, Lady Bracknell reveals that Algernons brother had become lost in just such a handbag and that Jack must, in actuality, be that lost child. What’s more, the child had been christened Ernest. The play ends with a prospect of two very happy marriages. The Importance of Being Earnest combines a labyrinthine plot, the seemingly irresolvable narrative of a farce, and some of the most comic and wittiest lines ever written. It is, as can probably be surmised from its extraordinary to-ings and fro-ings and its incredibly unlikely resolution, is not to be taken as a serious drama. Indeed, the characters and the setting lack any real depth; they are, first and foremost, vessels for Wilde’s witticisms lampooning the shallow and roots-obsessed society in which he lived.   However, this is not to the plays detriment – the audience is treated to some of the most sparkling verbal wit ever seen. Whether luxuriating in paradox or simply in the ridiculousness created by the plot that Wilde has set in motion, the play is at its best when it is portraying supposedly serious things in an extremely trivial matter.   However, this seeming piece of fluff is enormously influential and is actually a destructive critique of the social mores of the times. The emphasis that is put in the play on surfacesnames, where and how people were brought up, the way that they dressbelies a yearning for something which is more substantial. Wilde can be credited, by producing a piece of polished decadence, with contributing to the destruction of a class-based, surface-obsessed society. Wildes play seems to say, look beneath the surface, try and find the real people stifled beneath social norms. Brilliant, inventive, witty andwhen performedabsolutely hilarious, Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest, is a landmark in the history of Western theater, and probably that writer’s greatest achievement.

Free Essays on Johnny Rotten

The True Tale of Johhny Rotten Together they were legendary, revolutionary. They were among the first of their generation to publically vocalize a resistance to England’s head figure with lyrics like: â€Å"God bless the Queen and her fascist regime,† thus sparking a widespread underground rise of anarachy in England and on to the United States. They were among the first to utilize a raw and rebellious form of rock, later coined â€Å"punk rock.† They were the Sex Pistols. Together they were invincible. Each member feeling shunned by society, channeled their anger and hostility through a music that pushed societal boundries and most defintely questioned authority. While the Pistols were known for their cocky attitudes and and self-righteous behavior, each member (all four orginally named John) had their own personalities. John Lydon, who went by the moniker â€Å"Johnny Rotten,† was actually shy and introvertive. John Simon Richie, â€Å"Sid Vicious,† was quite the opposite. Never really knowing who he was (or never really bothering to discover) Simon Ritchie decided to take on the role of Sid, and the Sex Pistols’s bad-boy rebellious image became his identity. When the Pistols formed, Sid took the vocals and inevitably volunteered (without consent of the other members) to front the band. His outgoing, in-your-face approach to press and public, as well as his trashy attention-seeking girlfriend â€Å"Nancy,† put Sid in the spotlight and on the cover of nearly every fan-zine or tabloid about the Sex Pistols. It appeared as though Johhny Rotten was Sid’s sidekick, but behind the scenes, Lydon began resenting the fact that Sid took all the credit for the Pistols. Each member had their own creative rebellion to contribute to the dynamic of the band, but no other member got the recognition they deserved. This is Lydon’s story. This is his time to uncover the multifaced truth about that lies behind a slanted facade that everyone t... Free Essays on Johnny Rotten Free Essays on Johnny Rotten The True Tale of Johhny Rotten Together they were legendary, revolutionary. They were among the first of their generation to publically vocalize a resistance to England’s head figure with lyrics like: â€Å"God bless the Queen and her fascist regime,† thus sparking a widespread underground rise of anarachy in England and on to the United States. They were among the first to utilize a raw and rebellious form of rock, later coined â€Å"punk rock.† They were the Sex Pistols. Together they were invincible. Each member feeling shunned by society, channeled their anger and hostility through a music that pushed societal boundries and most defintely questioned authority. While the Pistols were known for their cocky attitudes and and self-righteous behavior, each member (all four orginally named John) had their own personalities. John Lydon, who went by the moniker â€Å"Johnny Rotten,† was actually shy and introvertive. John Simon Richie, â€Å"Sid Vicious,† was quite the opposite. Never really knowing who he was (or never really bothering to discover) Simon Ritchie decided to take on the role of Sid, and the Sex Pistols’s bad-boy rebellious image became his identity. When the Pistols formed, Sid took the vocals and inevitably volunteered (without consent of the other members) to front the band. His outgoing, in-your-face approach to press and public, as well as his trashy attention-seeking girlfriend â€Å"Nancy,† put Sid in the spotlight and on the cover of nearly every fan-zine or tabloid about the Sex Pistols. It appeared as though Johhny Rotten was Sid’s sidekick, but behind the scenes, Lydon began resenting the fact that Sid took all the credit for the Pistols. Each member had their own creative rebellion to contribute to the dynamic of the band, but no other member got the recognition they deserved. This is Lydon’s story. This is his time to uncover the multifaced truth about that lies behind a slanted facade that everyone t...