Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde - 1332 Words

In the novel The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Wilde quotes, â€Å"I hope [he] has not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.† Wilde’s quote is indirectly connected to the idea of moral ambiguity that The Scarlet Letter portrays. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter depicts the actuality of romance, sin, and revenge rooted in the 17th century American society. Strong Puritan beliefs of the characters in The Scarlet Letter created many different forms of moral ambiguity that can be described as illustrating both good and evil. Among the characters in the Scarlet letter with such moral struggle, Dimmesdale is presented to the readers as an outwardly honorable man who is constantly clashing his desires to be honorable and his other evil ambitions. Hawthorne is able to use Dimmesdale s moral ambiguity in The Scarlet Letter to demonstrate human frailty, ultimately sugges ting that hypocrisy results indescribable guilt causing failure to reach salvation. Dimmesdale’s moral ambiguity can be seen from the beginning of the novel. He is a highly renowned minister in The Scarlet Letter who is known to be an honorable man to the public but is privately corrupted. Dimmesdale s worst sin begins at the beginning of the novel during Hester’s trial. At the trial, Dimmesdale tells Hester â€Å"to speak out the name of [her] fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity andShow MoreRelatedThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde707 Words   |  3 PagesWebsters dictionary defines earnest as â€Å"characterized by or proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind. Which can be considered a pun since thought this play we see the characters being more apathetic. The Importance of Being Earnest is the story of Jack Worthing is the main character and the protagonist of this play. He is a well of business man who lives in the country and is very well respected there. But Jack has a secret he lives another in the city of London where he claims to goRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1750 Words   |  7 PagesSymbols in The Importance of Being Earnest The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde takes place in 1895 and exposes the hypocritical social expectations of the end of the Victorian era. During the Victorian period, marriage was about protecting your resources and keeping socially unacceptable impulses under control. The play undeniable reveals and focuses satire around differences between the behaviors of the upper class and that of the lower class. Oscar Wilde uses comedic symbolism ofRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde975 Words   |  4 PagesThe Importance of Being Earnest is a play written by Oscar Wilde about a man named Jack who lies about his identity and ends up creating huge confusion about who he really is. The biggest notion that appears throughout the play is about character. There are many instances where the characters of the play lie about their identities and pretend to be people they are not. Oscar Wilde does this throughout the play in order to explain how one’s ide ntity can be made up. One is not born with an identity;Read MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde913 Words   |  4 Pagesuntil they feel insulted, mostly due to the fact that humans don’t acknowledge their lifestyle flaws until others make them known. This concept has come to be the brick and mortar of the wry play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The significance of the notion of being earnest is contradicted in the play, through Wilde’s clever use of words, characters digression of societal normalcy, and triviality of Victorian concepts. Cynical character Algernon asserts that women of Victorian societyRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde773 Words   |  4 PagesIn the play by Oscar Wilde â€Å"The Importance of Being Earnest†, Wilde takes a comedic stance on a melodrama, portraying the duplicity of Victorian traditions and social values as the modernism of the twentieth century begins to emerge. The idea of the play revolves around its title of the characters discovering the importance of being earnest to their individual preferences. The author uses the traditional efforts of finding a marriage partner to illustrate the conflicting pressure of Victorian valuesRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1293 Words   |  6 Pagesyourself, many of which was not the must enjoyabl e of ways and lacked some fun that many need in their life. This forced many to split their Public life from the Private one. Written in the Victorian Era, the works of The importance of being earnest by Oscar Wilde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ,and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley displays how the characters need to keep be kept their Private lives separate from their Public lives in order to fit into their strict Victorian societyRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1318 Words   |  6 PagesSocial Status in Persuasion and The Importance of Being Earnest Social status refers to a person s position or importance within a society. I have done some research and have acquired information over the way social status is addressed in both the writings of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. In the novel Persuasion we can see how the characters go beyond their means to uphold their title and social value. In the play The Importance of Being Earnest we can see how the social rank and wealth of a personRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1364 Words   |  6 PagesIn order to fully understand the meaning of â€Å"The Importance of Being Earnest† and its importance in its time, one must look at Oscar Wilde’s background in relation to the Victorian time period. Biography.com states that Wilde had a very social life, growing up among influential Victorians and intellectuals of the time. As he grew older and became a successful writer, he began engaging in homosexual affairs which was a crime during the 19th century. He e ventually started a relationship with AlfredRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1382 Words   |  6 Pagesappeared to be strict. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, a nineteenth century author who was one of the most acclaimed playwrights of his day, is a play set in the Victorian time period that demonstrates how trivial telling the truth was. Different characters throughout Wilde’s play establish their dishonestly through hiding who they really are and pretending to be someone whom they are not. In an essay titled â€Å"From ‘Oscar Wilde’s Game of Being Earnest,’† Tirthankar Bose describes the charactersRead MoreThe Importance Of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde1243 Words   |  5 Pagesexuberant nonconformist and controversial playwright, eminent author Oscar Wilde produced critically acclaimed literary works that defined the essence of late Victorian England. Posthumously recognized for his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and satiric comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde initially acquired criticism for his immoral and unconventional style of writing. Additionally, to his dismay, strife followed Wilde in his personal life as he was notoriously tried and incarcerated