If you order your cheap essays from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on Oscar Wilde. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality Oscar Wilde paper right on time.
Our staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in Oscar Wilde, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your Oscar Wilde paper at affordable prices with essay writing service!
Oscar Wilde's ingenious mastery of the satirical technique is displayed for all its glory in The Importance of being Earnest. Wildes clever turns of phrase captured the imagination of many Victorian theatre goers. Many Victorian values are presented in an exaggerated inverted form, humourously exposing what Wilde considered fundamental flaws and hypocrisies rife in the prevailing mores. In order to examine this claim in more detail I intend to concentrate on the binary opposition of sincerity and style. The characters of this play display a blatant, exaggerated preference for remaining stylish. By ridiculing these characters Wilde is, in fact, ridiculing Victorian culture, in that although they may pretend to value sincerity over style, the opposite is true.
Let us begin by exploring Wildes treatment of the dichotomy between sincerity and style within the actual text. In the opening act Jack is intending to propose to Gwendolen. They have the opportunity to discuss their relationship in private. Jack states "Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl…I have ever met since…I met you" (1. 1. 7-7) Gwendolen overlooks the true implication of this statement. Because Jack delivers the line in the style Gwendolen expects she sees no reason to question the sincerity of the line. Her ignorance becomes the joke.
Another obvious example of Gwendolen's apparent regard for style over sincerity can be found in Jacks marriage proposal to her
JACK Gwendolen, will you marry me?
Cheap Custom Essays on Oscar Wilde
GWENDOLEN Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.
JACK My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you.
GWENDOLEN Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderful blue eyes you have, Earnest! They are quite, quite, blue. I hope you always look at me like that, especially when there are other people present. (1. 1. 41-440)
This conversation twice displays Gwendolens preference for style. Firstly Gwendolen makes it perfectly clear she is more interested in the manner in which Jack proposes. She would be happier if Jack had practiced proposing, in order that he make a more stylish delivery and perhaps fulfill more closely her romantic ideals. From this we learn the low value Gwendolen places on the sincerity of a proposal of marriage, as she desires her suitor to have 'practiced' on women he does not intend to marry. Secondly the last comment "especially when there are other people present" shows her desire for Jack to 'appear' to be in love with her. The image of Jack loving her is more important than the sincerity of Jack being in love with her. The frivolous nature of the play is represented in the lightearted approach to this subject.
The apparent disregard for sincerity is not confined to the character of Gwendolen. Upon receiving a proposal of marriage from Algernon In Act Two, Cecily can be found confessing to Algernon that she is already engaged to him. She has made up a entire relationship, living in a fantasy that she is already engaged. Cecily has fallen in love without even meeting the object of her affections.
"… And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels there must be something in him after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Earnest." (. 1. 448-451)
Cecily's instant acceptance of Algernon's proposal on the basis that she has already played out the engagement in her mind. Apparently the cachet and style built up by all she had heard of this un met Gentleman proved irresistably attractive. This is a ridiculus notion yet is presented as natural discourse.
In Act Three Cecily's guardian Jack refuses to give his consent for the marriage until Cecily comes of age, at thirty five. When asked if she could wait this long she replies
"…but I couldn't wait all that time. I hate waiting even five minutes for anybody. It makes me rather cross. I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in others, and waiting even to be married, is quite out of the question." (.1. 64-68)
This is a fine example of the paradox used throughout this script, highlighting the interplay between sincerity and style. The absurd way in which Cecily nonchalantly refuses to wait, holding on to some pre-conceived notions of punctuality (style) completely contradicts all the preceeding declarations of true love.
The relationship between sincerity and style is not confined to love and marriage. In Act One Lady Bracknell is greeting Algernon
LADY BRACKNELL Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.
ALGERNON I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
LADY BRACKNELL That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together. (1. 1. 8-87)
Algernons reply to Lady Bracknells question "I'm feeling very well…" is met with an explanation that behaving and feeling are not the same. We understand 'feeling' to imply emotions,truth and therefore sincerity. In asking if Algernon was behaving well Lady Bracknell meant 'acting', 'performing', well, with style. Lady Bracknell plainly states that behaving well is different from feeling well, and that it is unlikely for the two things to be found together. In other words, If you are behaving well you are unlikely to be feeling well. Style and sincerity do not go together.
Outlined above are a few examples how Wilde has treated the binary opposition between style and sincerity. The pattern developed becomes obvious, the characters demonstrate unselfconsciously a preference to always remain stylish over being sincere. This prevailing attitude is summed up perfectly in Act Three
Gwendolen Yes, dear, if you can believe him.
CECILY I don't. But that does not affect the wonderful beauty of his answer.
GWENDOLEN True. In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.…" (. 1. 5-)
Could Wilde himself have been an advocate of such an attitude? No, Wilde was in fact using The Importance of Being Earnest as a vehicle to expose the shallowness in many of his contemporaries. Wilde had a long established association with the aesthetic movement, an artistic movement concerned with altering the basis in which art was to be regarded by society, promoting the notion that art was beyond the bounds of normal morality. Wilde can be found himself to have claimed "Aesthetics are higher than ethics. They belong to a more spiritual sphere." (Ellmann 18 pp 0) Because of his aesthetic approach Wilde would have viewed the prevailing ideology from the outside and from this higher 'spiritual sphere' Wilde felt free (possibly even obliged) to expose some of the hypocracies he encounted in the mores of the day.
For the gifted wordsmith Wilde, the satirical format provided the perfect means for delivering his cynical observations. In 'sending up' these characters Wilde exaggerated their attitudes making them appear ridiculous. The continual delivery of lines which seemed to confirm the characters preference for style over sincerity was done with sarcasm and irony. In regards to The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's biographer Richard Ellmann commented
In 'The Soul of Man under Socialism,' Wilde had repundiated marriage, the family, and private property; in this play he repundiated them by pretending they are ineradicable, urging their enforcement with a mad insistence which shows how preposterous they are. (Ellmann 187 p 8)
This binary inversion is so exaggerated, that in this ironic spirit we have no choice but to accept this play as Wilde intended it, a humorous jab mimicking the decay of values amongst the very group of people he was entertaining.
By the very nature of Wilde and the nature of the satirical format it becomes possible to deduce Wilde was challenging the values of his society. As laid out by the few preceeding examples of the sincerity/style dichotomy, the paradoxical nature in which they are delivered becomes clear. Exaggerating, and therefore making absurd, conventional morality is the method used for this challenge. Wilde had a firmly established iconoclastic reputation. His aesthetic principles led him to constantly challenge social codes. Wilde would have considered it vital to challenge the ideological constrants of his society. The challenge did not go unnoticed by audiences of the day. Following the opening performance a review in the New York Times reported "Oscar Wilde may be said to have at last, and by a single stroke, put his enemies under his feet." (Ellmann 18 pp406)
Bibliography & Reference List
Ellmann Richard (187) Oscar Wilde London Hamish Hamilton.
Oscar Wilde (18) Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest and other plays US
Oxford University Press.
Bibliography & Reference List
Ellmann Richard (187) Oscar Wilde London Hamish Hamilton.
Oscar Wilde (18) Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest and other plays US
Oxford University Press.
Please note that this sample paper on Oscar Wilde is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on Oscar Wilde, we are here to assist you. Your cheap research papers on Oscar Wilde will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
Order your authentic assignment from essay writing service and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!