What makes the importance of being earnest a well made play

And George Bernard Shaw was also starting to experiment with the genre of the problem play and the form of the well-made play a play with a very closely structured plotting in the s, though his plays often had to wait for decades for performance because their subject matter was so shocking that they were denied licences for public performance by the Lord Chamberlain.

The Importance of Being Earnest clearly is not a problem play, but it does make reference to the genre. Lady Bracknell's discovery that Jack is a foundling and his mis-identification of Miss Prism as his mother refer both to the problem play motif of female sexual activity, as well as to the genre in nineteenth-century theatre.

Originally it meant a play with music. In the nineteenth century many theatres put on plays with musical accompaniment as a way of evading the licensing laws which required serious drama to be passed for performance by the Lord Chamberlain's office. Melodrama could, perhaps be described as a low cultural form. It was the theatre of the masses, of the urban working and lower-middle classes, who had to work hard for a living and wanted entertainment not intellectual stimulus from theatre, though its audiences were much more socially mixed than in the West End theatres where sheer expense kept the proletariat away.

The melodrama depended on creaking plots, filled with coincidence and sudden reversals of fortune. The characters were one-dimensional rather than psychologically convincing. It was exciting to look at, easy to follow and morally clear-cut. There were musical interludes, required by legislation: 'real' theatre had to seek licences from the Lord Chamberlain's office to put on serious plays for public performances, but musical plays were exempt.

Earnest is not a melodrama either. There is music — but it is part of the action, used to establish character as when Algy describes his playing as inaccurate though rendered with feeling, or when Jack and Algy pretend that they are unworried by the collapse of their love affairs by whistling the tune of 'some dreadful popular air from a British opera' — Act III, p. Unlike melodrama, the scenes in Earnest are very long, and the audience has to concentrate to get the jokes.

However, the plot is absurd, dependent on coincidence and reversal of fortune. The characters are not psychologically motivated and do not behave or speak realistically.

The genre of Oscar Wilde's play, one might say, is uncertain. James Theatre in London to general goods reviews. Many critics recognized that the play was undoubtedly clever and popular with audience members , but most were frustrated with the fact that it did not really touch on any important political or social issues.

While this is true, the play does have an interesting commentary on Victorian high society and even goes so far as to mock marriage, a very highly regarded social institution at the time. Two of the major features in it are a quick conclusion after the climax of the play and the use of misplaced papers to bring about plot twists. Wilde exaggerates both of these themes in Earnest.

Wilde was publicly humiliated during this trial as not only did it expose his relationship with many male prostitutes, but the verdict also left him completely bankrupt. Soon after this first trial, the crown took Wilde to court only a few weeks later on the same charges and Wilde was imprisoned for two years. After being released, Wilde found himself cast out of English society and fled to France where he spent the last 3 years of his life living in extreme poverty under an assumed name.

Do you think that this is true? Many of the social pretenses the Wilde pokes fun at were based either in large or small part in Christianity marriage, Christening, etc. Yet, on his deathbed, Wilde officially converted to Roman Catholicism. How can these two facts be justified?

Do you think that this play, which was written as a satire of Victorian era high society England, has any relevance in modern day, 21 st century America? One of the major themes of the play is the triviality of high society. One of the things that make this play so endearing to audiences is the dialogue, which is full of witticisms and contradictions.

Discuss some examples of dialogue where this is evident and why you think Oscar Wilde included them. Do you think that the exaggeration of the Well-Made Play is significant to Earnest? If the play happens to discuss of serious or social political issues, then so be it. I believe the same theory applies to the playwright; they write about what is important to them. This applies to some plays more than others, depending on how badly the playwright wishes to see a difference in the way society functions.

Using wit and and obvious contradictions as his "action" in The Importance of Being Earnest made people in Wilde's world pay attention to the social issues at hand. Consider the play on words within the title of the play. Jack's alter-ego is Ernest, namesake of the play, or easily mistaken as such. The spelling of "Earnest" in the title implies the actual term meaning: "full seriousness, as of intention or purpose: to speak in earnest.

The characters in this play rarely ever speak in earnest; saying only what benefits their social standard of living. In choosing the specific spelling of "Earnest" in the title, Wilde brings the theme of social hypocrisy to the forefront. The play is his means of addressing what bothers him, necessary or not. It reminds me of several different t. It also brought back memories of things me and my friends did that were similar to this, but not to the extreme. Open navigation menu.

Close suggestions Search Search. User Settings. Skip carousel. Carousel Previous. Carousel Next. What is Scribd? The Importance of Being Earnest. Did you find this document useful? Is this content inappropriate? Report this Document. Flag for inappropriate content. Download now. Related titles. Carousel Previous Carousel Next. Theory and the International Communist Movement- Althusser. Setting and issues of The crucible and The importance of being earnest. Jump to Page. Search inside document.

Joseph Kfoury.