Humor and Conflict in the Importance of Being Earnest
English 111
28 February 2014
Humor and Conflict in The Importance of Being Earnest Comedy often uses conflict to create a dull, everyday situation into something exciting and people find them funny because we often laugh at the mishaps of others. When the characters' viewpoints are extreme and exaggerated, it makes the situation amusing to watch and follow since things are getting crazy. In The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, successfully creates humorous outcomes from disagreements between the main characters Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn, Cecily, and Lady Bracknell. One of the first conflicts that is quickly brought up in the play is between Jack and Lady Bracknell about marriage and respectability in Act I. Jack fell in love with Gwendolyn and wants to propose to her, but their marriage must be approved by Lady Bracknell. She questions him about his life, and when Jack reveals that he has no parents and implies that he may have been born from a poor family, Lady Bracknell finds this piece of information shocking and disapproves him. If she were to ever approve the marriage, Lady Bracknell suggests Jack to "try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." (Wilde 15) She also states, "You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?" (Wilde 15) Lady Bracknell's viewpoints on marriage and social status is absurd, as she puts society's shallow opinion on respectability first over love, a powerful, unstoppable force. She compares Gwendolyn marrying Jack is the same thing as her marrying a handbag. It is very unreasonable and foolish of her to believe that Jack can do the impossible and bring his parents back from out of nowhere so we all laugh at her superficialness. Jack's frustration against
28 February 2014
Humor and Conflict in The Importance of Being Earnest Comedy often uses conflict to create a dull, everyday situation into something exciting and people find them funny because we often laugh at the mishaps of others. When the characters' viewpoints are extreme and exaggerated, it makes the situation amusing to watch and follow since things are getting crazy. In The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, successfully creates humorous outcomes from disagreements between the main characters Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn, Cecily, and Lady Bracknell. One of the first conflicts that is quickly brought up in the play is between Jack and Lady Bracknell about marriage and respectability in Act I. Jack fell in love with Gwendolyn and wants to propose to her, but their marriage must be approved by Lady Bracknell. She questions him about his life, and when Jack reveals that he has no parents and implies that he may have been born from a poor family, Lady Bracknell finds this piece of information shocking and disapproves him. If she were to ever approve the marriage, Lady Bracknell suggests Jack to "try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." (Wilde 15) She also states, "You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?" (Wilde 15) Lady Bracknell's viewpoints on marriage and social status is absurd, as she puts society's shallow opinion on respectability first over love, a powerful, unstoppable force. She compares Gwendolyn marrying Jack is the same thing as her marrying a handbag. It is very unreasonable and foolish of her to believe that Jack can do the impossible and bring his parents back from out of nowhere so we all laugh at her superficialness. Jack's frustration against