The%20Importance%20of%20Being%20Earnest

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The Importance of Being Earnest

• An Introduction

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Victorian Period (1837-1901)

• Victorian society structured by class
• Lower class only recognized only for their
  ability to provide service to middle and upper
  classes
• Wealthy did not usually work their estates but
  had bailiffs or managers to do so
• First born sons of the wealthy were well-off
  because they received the wealth of the family
• Second and subsequent sons had to enter the
  military or clergy
• Marrying was a young ladys goal

Our Royal Highness
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Tea Time

• Daily routine in English life
• Everything stopped for tea time
• Tea served with delicate sandwiches and sweets
• Tea Time often became more elaborate when guests
  were invited

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Victorian Education

• Education was much more limited
• Middle class boys attended grammar school and
  university if they received a grant
• Middle class girls received limited education at
  home and village churches

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Upper Class Ladies

• Learned under the guidance of a governess
• Learned the feminine arts of sewing and
  embroidery and music training
• Learned French

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Upper Class Gents

• Acquired live-in tutor after infancy
• At seven, boys were sent to public school
• After public school, boys went to university
• University required
• Attendance of lectures
• Private lessons with a tutor
• Rigorous reading and writing
• Yearly comprehensive exams
• If a young man got into trouble, he was sent home
  in disgrace

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Oscar Wilde

• Novelist, Poet and Dramatist
• Born on October 16, 1854 as Oscar Fingal
  OFlahertie Wills Wilde
• Attended Trinity College and Magdalen College
  where he won the Newdigate Prize for one of his
  poems
• Married Constance Lloyd at the age of 30 and had
  two sons

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Literary Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
Complete Fairy Tales

• Began publishing in 1881 and wrote throughout his
  life
• Known for his ability to produce lively, colorful
  conversation and witty remarks
• Believed in art for arts sake
• Very eccentric
• Most popular work was and is The Importance of
  Being Earnest

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Wilde reacted against these ideas in Victorian
society

• Industrialism
• Hypocrisy/complacency/artificiality
• The Romantic view of Nature
• he saw it as crude, unshaped
• The People
• He believed the Artist was to be isolated and
  perhaps persecuted for his genius
• The aristocracy and affluent middle class
• Melodrama
• Where characters may be seen as talking directly
  from life

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Influences

• The well-made play
• The mechanism of the play depends on a time
  bomb from the past
• Use of coincidence, and question and answer to
  provide background
• Shakespeares The Comedy of Errors
• Features separated siblings

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Literary devices used in the play

• Epigram - a terse, witty statement (one-liner)
• Epigrams are often paradoxical in nature
• I can resist everything except temptation -
  Oscar Wilde
• Symbol - something that, although it is of
  interest in its own right, stand for or suggests
  something larger and more complex
• The American Flag
• A road symbolizes the walk of life