About Oscar Wildes "The Importance of being Earnest" (PDF)

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: With his great success The Importance of being Earnest, the Irish born Oscar Wilde created with his last work a masterpiece of modern comedy. In a perfect way of satirizing the Victorian norms, he criticizes the style of living in those days. In the play's subtitle A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, he directly addresses the mainly upper class audience of his time. Therefore his intention was to make people think more deeply of the serious and the trivial things in life. But not only Wilde criticized others styles of life, he also has been criticized. Some of his works are addressing Victorian taboos for example handling with the theme of homosexuality and the coupled dandyism. Also he has been outlawed for his behavior in real life. His double life attitude, while having a family, leading a life of homosexuality, and his scandals with having sex with male prostitutes, brought him into prison.
In the following I am going to depict the Victorian perception of art, as well as the Victorian norms and attitudes and the social behavior in the Victorian Age. Furthermore I will show in a detailed way the two main characters of the play Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, who are living a double life, seeming to be very funny and absurd. After that I am going to define the word 'Bunburying' which is an expression that is one of the main points in the play. In the end I am going to show in which situations the main characters are using this method of leading a double life, proofed with examples of the play, showing at the two persons separately. [...]