The Importance of Being Earnest?

Question

1.Oscar Wilde’s basic formula for satire is [his characters’] assumption of a code of behaviour that represents the reality of Victorian life. Otto Reinert (a literary commentator) argues that in this play Wilde is principally concerned with the difference between conventional and actual manners and morality. Discuss these points with particular attention to what is being satirised by “The Importance of Being Earnest”.

What exactly does that mean?

Answer 1

It means his characters behave in one way while in society and in another when they feel they are not judged. That is, they assume a persona, a character, they play a part for others to see, but they may be very different from that character in real life. Why did they do this? Because in Victorian times, society had very strict rules that had to be obeyed in order for someone to be part of that society. It is these rules and this hypocrisy that Wilde ridicules in his works. He was a gay man in a time when that was punishable with jail time(and indeed he was sent to jail for it), so you can understand where this need to ridicule these absurd rules came from in his case.

Answer 2

It's saying that Wilde takes what everyone at the time assumed or paid lip service to being the normal and accepted way of doing things, where people are all honorable and chaste before marriage (at least those of the upper classes), never indiscrete, etc. when in reality people don't do all those things. The real question in this case, I think, is exactly *which* aspects of Victorian society is Wilde satirising in this particular play-- that's what you are to decide and illustrate with examples.

PS The title should give you one clue!

Answer 3

Yes I agree with most of what's been answered

Answer 4

I too have the same question