Blog #23

I am proud to say that I am writing this most recent blog post on the fact that I actually enjoy a required reading assignment in AP Lit class. I can proudly say that “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde is quickly becoming one of my favorite plays thus far. The play is set during one of my favorite periods, the Victorian period, a time where it was only right and proper to do everything a certain way and to obey every single social and politically correct rule or else you were perfectly banished forever. The juxtaposition of this extremely strict and unforgiving society with the humor created in the dialogue and actions of the characters is positively hilarious. I find it so amusing that these characters in this play can pay attention to such detail as what kind of food is acceptable to serve during a visit, yet the same characters do not understand the absurdity of writing to the Scotland Yard about a missing cigarette case!

On another level to this situational irony that results in hilarity, underneath the jokes and the puns is the deeper context of what this play is actually saying about society during this time period. The insanity of blaming your servant for consuming the eight bottles of champagne that you drank and the whole concept of Bunburrying are all tiny pieces of the larger puzzle. What all of these situations are suggesting is that society’s rules and regulations and judgment are so air-tight and stuffy that it forces a person to take on another personality just to escape. Algernon feels that it is completely necessary to create this fake “ill friend” so that he may escape the drab parties that his aunt throws and that he is forced to attend. The irony in this overall situation is that this society is one to focus on the fact that everyone must do what is morally right in society and in order to ensure that everyone does so they have set in place all of these rules and societal-norms. The irony being that the sheer amount and strictness of these rules is what forces people like Algernon and Jack/Earnest to create a deceitful double life just to cope with society. In a sense this society is self-destructing by attempting to enforce order and properness through strong societal norms however the only thing is succeeds in doing is forcing members to break these norms just so that they can be sane enough to be accept4ed by the members abiding by the original norms in the first place.

The whole matter is very deep and circular if one thinks about it too hard, but that is another reason why I am coming to love this play so much. It is much like Emma in that is seems trivial on the surface but has a much deeper meaning. I enjoy the slapstick comedy and the hidden jokes within this play and cannot wait to see how the rest of it turns out. Will society win, or will Bunburying win?