Triviality and Seriousness in Oscar Wilde's Play 'The Importance of Being Earnest'

Authors

  • Mariwan Hasan Sulaimani University, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
  • Bafrin Ebrahim Independent Researcher
  • Rangin Mahmud Independent Researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15642/NOBEL.2022.13.2.163-174

Keywords:

eighteenth century drama, Oscar Wilde, triviality, seriousness, arranged marriage

Abstract

This paper aims to elaborate triviality and seriousness portrayed in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1898). The play was considered Wilde’s masterpiece, and it highlights the life in the Victorian era. The play portrays the marriage life also the importance of wealth, land, and beauty. This paper employs textual and historical approaches. The findings revealed that the play exemplifies triviality by treating serious things like trivial objects and vice versa. Marriage was seen as insignificant by the male characters in the play. Lane saw it as the reason for the champagne downgrading and a bargaining part for Algernon and Jack to have their goals. Meanwhile, unimportant thing like the name was treated as if it was life matter. Cecily and Gwendolen saw a particular name as the main requirement for choosing a husband. This paper concludes that Oscar Wilde made use of such a technique on purpose to make fun of the Victorian way of life.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Archer, W. (2005). On The Importance of Being Earnest. In K. Beckson (Ed.), Oscar Wilde: The critical heritage (pp. 217–218). Routledge.

Balkin, S. (2016). Realizing personality in The Importance of Being Earnest. Modern Drama, 59(1), 26–48. https://doi.org/10.3138/MD.0743

Cazamian, L., & Vergnas, R. Las. (1960). A history of English literature: Modern times. J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd.

Foster, R. (1956). Wilde as parodist: A second look at The Importance of Being Earnest. College English, 18(1), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/372764

Garland, T. W. (2012). The contest of naming between ladies in The Importance of Being Earnest. The Explicator, 70(4), 272–274. https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2012.727893

Hazra, S. (2013). Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest: A critique of the Victorian society. Indian Journal of Research, 2(1), 3–4. https://www.worldwidejournals.com/paripex/recent_issues_pdf/2013/January/oscar-wildes-the-importance-of-being-earnest-a-critique-of-the-victorian-society_January_2013_4691915877_7602907.pdf

Jordan, R. (1970). Satire and fantasy in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Ariel, 1(4), 101–109. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/download/31611/25687

Junmei, J. (2017). A corpus-aided study of language features of “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Journal on English Language Teaching, 7(2), 29–38. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1269091.pdf

Moss, J. (2001). World literature and its times. Volume 4: British and Irish literature and its times: The Victorian era to the present (1837- ) (J. Moss (ed.)). Gale Group.

Poague, L. A. (1973). The Importance of Being Earnest: The texture of Wilde’s irony. Modern Drama, 16(3), 251–257. https://doi.org/10.1353/MDR.1973.0062

Reinert, O. (1956). Satiric strategy in the Importance of Being Earnest. College English, 18(1), 14–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/372763

Shaw, G. B. (1895). An old new play and a new old one. The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 79(2045), 249–251. https://ia902809.us.archive.org/17/items/saturdayreview7918unse/saturdayreview7918unse.pdf

Singh, A., Sharma, R., & Singh, V. (2019). Aspect of realism in plays of Oscar Wilde. Research Journal of Social & Life Sciences, 28(1), 152–159. https://www.researchjournal.in/download/rjosls/12.pdf#page=153

Toliver, H. E. (1963). Wilde and the importance of “sincere and studied triviality.” Modern Drama, 5(4), 389–399. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/741938

Valentukeviciute, P. (2022). Transgressing masculinity norms: The presentation of Victorian masculinities in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde [Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet]. https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/handle/11250/3011907

Wang, J. (2019). An analysis of the union of seriousness and triviality in the Importance of Being Earnest from paradox. International Education, Economics, Social Science, Arts, Sports and Management Engineering Conference, 2793–2797. http://166.62.7.99/conferences/LNEMSS/IEESASM 2019/19IEESASM578.pdf

Wilde, O. (2004). The importance of being earnest (R. Jackson (ed.)). A & C Black Publishers.

Downloads

Published

2022-09-30

How to Cite

Hasan, M., Ebrahim, B. ., & Mahmud, R. (2022). Triviality and Seriousness in Oscar Wilde’s Play ’The Importance of Being Earnest’. NOBEL: Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, 13(2), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.15642/NOBEL.2022.13.2.163-174

Issue

Section

Articles