Importance of Being Earnest

A detailed Summary of Importance of Being Earnest

Expect the Unexpected Throughout Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" various different literary devices are very effectively and skillfully used. Most of these literary devices create a sense of comedy in the book. One that especially puts a light- hearted tone into the reading is the inverted logic, which almost every character is guilty of using at one time or another. Just when you think you know what a character is going to say, they react completely opposite and change everything. The strongest user of inverted logic has to be Lady Bracknell. A mother is supposed to instill logic and reasoning into her child, she is supposed to steer her back on track when she goes astray. In scene 1, this is exactly what looks to be happening. Gwendolen has just been engaged to Jack, but she is under the impression that his name is Ernest. She is jumping into something that isn't real and it looks as though her mother is about to butt in and stop it. "In the carriage, Gwendolen!" says Lady Bracknell as she kicks out her daughter in order for her to question her fiance. She starts off, "Do you smoke?" When Jack replies, "Well, yes, I must admit I smoke" you would expect Lady Bracknell to scold

Worthing, 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." Now, you can plainly see that Lady Bracknell is asking him to do something that is literally impossible. But it is not that she is so against her Gwendolen being with Ernest, it is just that she wants him to have a parent, so she asks him to produce one. Quite the simple idea, but the logic is anything but correct, it is severely inverted, and plays a huge role in creating the comedy in "The Importance of Being Ernest". Another character that embraces inverted logic as though it was a way of life is Algernon Moncrieff. Algy, as he is called in the play, is the one of biggest contributors to Oscar Wilde's style of writing. He is the one that presents the idea of "Bunburying" in the first place, and sets the stage for all of the controversy that comes from it later on. Even though his logic is quite backwards various times in the story, it is always justified in his mind, or so it appears. Although, it is very interesting how he reacts in the end of his Bunbury when they are caught and called "cowards" by the ladies. You would think that when they get caught, they would give up the act and turn them in for whatever mercy they can manage. But no, Algernon continues his inverted logic and how he acts is very surprising. As they are found guilty of lying by Cecily and Gwendolen, Jack says to Algy in disgust, "This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying I suppose?" Instead of apologizing to him and saying how it was stupid in the

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Approximate Word count = 1093
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English