Concetti Chiave
- The play "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde is a comedy that cleverly uses a pun between the adjective "earnest" and the name "Ernest".
- The main character, Algernon, is a young aristocrat who fabricates a friend named Ernest, while another character, Jack, pretends to have a brother named Ernest.
- The plot revolves around mistaken identities and the comedic situations that arise from the characters' deceptions about their identities.
- Jack's true identity is revealed when Miss Prism confesses that he was abandoned as a child, making him Algernon's older brother.
- Wilde critiques the superficiality and societal norms of Victorian society through the characters' obsession with appearances and names.
The importance to being Ernest
T.I.E. was written by Oscar Wilde in 1894. It’s the best comedy of Wilde and, contemporaneamente, the last triumph. This comedy has no moral. The title use a play on words between the adjective "earnest" (that is serious or honest) and the proper name “Ernest”, because the words have the same pronunciation. Algernon is the protagonist, a young aristocrat, who pretends to have a friend peasant named ernest, which has a somewhat frail health.
in fact, Algernon really has a rustic friend named Jack, who has invented the existence of a brother named ernest who lives in London. they discover the secret of the other. Jack looks to his cousin of his friend Algernon as rural, because she only wants to marry a man who is called ernest, because he thinks that it is the most beautiful name. Algernon goes to Jack's house and looks to Cecily as Jack's brother Ernest. But Jack can not get married because he is an orphan. The two girls are convinced of having to marry the same Ernest, but then it turns out that neither of them is actually called Ernest. Finally, Miss Prism confesses that Jack had been abandoned in a handbag at Victoria Station and is the older brother of Algernon. So, neither man is really "earnest" (honest), nor “Earnest”, because they lie to the women who love. Wilde with this device brings to light all that care of the aspect and shape of the high Victorian society.
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