Both Jack and Algernon lead a double life, known as ‘Bunburying’, the practice of creating an elaborate deception so as to misbehave whilst maintaining expected social standards of duty and responsibility, essentially, pretending to be earnest. Ernest is Jack’s imaginary wayward brother and a means of escaping social functions and duties; Algernon too behaves in a similar fashion. The play, although a comedy, has a sober tone; to be earnest is to be
well, for the matter of fact all i had to do was make this up and it worked.... i hope. a central motif in the play is trickery or deceit, whether for good or evil purposes. counterfeiting, or concealing one's true feelings, is part of this motif. everyone seems to lie; good characters as well as evil ones engage in deceit as they attempt to conceal their feelings: beatrice and benedick mask their feelings for one another with bitter insults; don john spies on claudio and hero; don pedro and his 'crew' deceive benedick and beatrice. who hides and what is hidden?
The Importance of Being Earnest as Timeless Social and Political Satire [For All Generations] The Importance of Being Earnest was written in 1896 by famous playwright, Oscar Wilde, and is a timeless masterpiece that transcends time because it has satirical elements that target social and political issues that are still invariably controversial in today’s society. The play consistently parodies issues such as the relationship between romance and marriage and one’s socioeconomic status and marriage. In the traditional sense, romance and marriage probably should fall hand-in-hand, and though one’s socioeconomic status probably should not be the decided factor of a marriage, it is the play’s mission to satirically suggest otherwise. While romance and marriage should inherently fall hand-in-hand, looming faithfully overhead is the idea that romance suddenly disappears shortly after the wedding. Perhaps the inevitable experience of coming to terms with the thought of living together forever procures an uneasy feeling and puts an impression on newlyweds that marriage turns into a series of routines and monotony.
Since male honour was very important at the time he disregarded the social conventions and decided to go against his comrade. Claudio on the other hand is very driven by his pride and honour, decides to shame Hero to avoid being called a ‘Cuckold’. Beatrice is witty, flamboyant and sharp-tongued as opposed to Hero who is the typical daughter, not acting until her father allows it; this is very common in Shakespearean times and again shows the contrast between their relationships. Claudio falls in love at first sight with Hero based on her appearance without first looking
The men are supposed to be sick with love, vehement about it, and so sweet a woman would have to accept his advances. The woman’s role is very much a broad, sweeping statement. This allows for the notion that women are property to be claimed to run as the undercurrent to the courtly love system. This is evident in the way that Arcite and Palamon, Theseus, and even the Gods force Emelye into a marriage she wants no part in. The Knight tries his best to maintain a noble and romantic air to his story but the tale itself contradicts that.
Explore the presentation of marriage in Oscar Wilde’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’ and Henrik Ibsens ‘A Dolls House.’In both Oscar Wilde’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’ and Henrik Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ the playwrights seem to imply through their plays that the institution of marriage in the Victorian era had become centered around superficial values, such as social status, rather than love. Both Ibsen and Wilde use their plays as vehicles to criticise the society they perceived around them, exposing the faults of the upper classes through naturalistic settings and witty banter. The naturalistic setting of both plays, allows the audience to see how the ideas and events within the plays were based on realistic ideals and the witty banter, particularly pronounced within Wilde’s play that explicitly follows the conventions of a comedy of manners, allows both playwrights to satirise and pass judgment on society in a slightly tongue in cheek manner, so as not to cause offense to the very people being mocked who would see the performances. Because Wilde has written his play as a comedy of manners, the characters that he has created can be perceived more like caricatures, which allows him to exaggerate certain characteristics that the audience will be able to recognize and yet still be able to laugh at. Ibsen however takes a more moralistic approach to portraying Victorian society; by doing this he makes the characters more realistic.Both writers position the argument that marriage was being undermined as increasingly society seemed to show a lack of trust and respect within marriage.
The moral of being human is to necessarily be flawed, and to strive for perfection is to deny one’s own morality. The themes of both narratives can be understood as morality. The morality of Aylmer in “The Birth-Mark” can be seen through his journals. “The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy as record as ever mortal hand had penned” (Hawthorne 220). This example shows the reader that Aylmer is trying to hide his imperfections by trying to make his wife completely perfect.
Shakespeare manipulates our response to Richard by implying in the text that he poisoned his wife Anne in order to gain a political marriage to his niece, Elizabeth of York. He is a master of dissembling and a man undeniably without charm, regardless his physical deformity. Finally, he possesses a sense of irony and a sardonic wit, which extensively explains his connection with audiences and readers. Shakespeare’s use of soliloquies enables us to see Richard’s duplicitous nature. He masterfully manipulates our response into having a grudging admiration for his skilful use of language.
A Society Satirized in a Wonderful Play “Ignorance is like an exotic fruit…” writes Oscar Wilde as he sets the literary table with a rich display of Victorian satire. “The Importance of Being Earnest is obviously a comic critic of late Victorian value (Schmidt 5). Born in Dublin, Ireland, to affluent parents in 1854, Wilde experienced a social advantage when graduating from Oxford after receiving a scholarship (Moss 179) that gave him more than a taste of indulgent upper class life to ridicule. Wilde shows his characters as if they actually knew that they were in play and making them feel and realize all the absurdities they are saying (Foster 19). Both Jack and Algernon are admired by two young ladies who mistakenly believe the men's names to be Ernest, and who adore the men for this very reason.
For Heidi With Blue Hair The poem shows how school rules are too deterministic and also how it exposes us to social boundaries, which causes the persona to reflect on the uniqueness of individuality. In addition it shows how by breaking the school rules or system, it shows how society is corrupted and that they serve to manipulate the rules for their own advantage and force us to confirm their norms and standards. The prose-like poem creates a light-hearted mood to the readers and that it serves to show the freedom of an individual and also it shows contrast with the school system, which is quite restricted. Furthermore, the informal and free verse of the poem, it shows how Adcock is trying to show how individuality still exist and that it sort of diverge from the idea that society has to confirm with the standards that the school sets. The school rules and the ‘headmistress’ serve to represent the high authority in society and how it is corrupted, taking advantage of the vulnerability of a person or individuals.