The Importance of Being Earnest

I found this book ridiculous and hilarious!

A "comedy of manners" is defined as: "A comedy concerned with the social actions and behavior of members of a highly sophisticated, upper-class society. Low-class characters are normally subordinate in interest or are played against the foibles of their 'betters'. Such comedy emphasizes wit, whether true of false, and more often that not take an arch view of the love game." How closely does Earnest fit this description?

Earnest definitely fits this description. Wilde's satirical style makes practically every other line some sort of jab at society. He challenges social order, marriage, and morality through characters that are more caricatures than flesh and blood. They speak with such certainty on rules that society has unknowingly agreed upon, that it comes off as very humorous and makes one think that people are as senseless as sheep.


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The status of females in this play is atrocious. However since it is a satire it is only a representation in the extreme of how women really are considered in Victorian society. Even still the point Wilde makes is that women have no respect as being fully human. They are represented as very simple to the point of being comparatively lacking in mental development compared to the men. The young girls in the story are hung up on he idea of being married to an "Ernest". They have no consideration to the character of the men they are ready to share their lives with, quite the opposite actually. Cecily has already invented the man she wants her love to be before they even met. It's as if the women cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. They have taken the role of play write of their lives and are simply waiting for the proper man, named Ernest of course, to audition for the role. Thus they only care about the appearance of the play, the look of the characters, rather than the person who plays the role. Miss Prism is so unable to distinguish between fact and fiction that she is able to confuse a script for a baby! To her each had an equal life, each a dear creation to her. Yet this value put into a fictional world could be what gets the women by day by day. Without the script, love letters, and other general delusions the women are left in a lonely world with men who treat them as the dolls they become. They are trapped in a reality constructed with facades that must not be broken.