The Paradox of Victorian England

A detailed Summary of The Paradox of Victorian England


Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, the characters construct a world that is filled with exaggeration, irony, and absurdity; this world's humor casts a spell on the audience, which paradoxically is created through an exaggeration of the very world the Victorian audience lives in. Thus, Oscar Wilde's social criticism is made doubly ironic; his criticisms include those of the Victorian ideas of marriage, class, morality, and the appearance of respectability.

Wilde's main criticism in the play is with the institution of marriage. For although it is continually criticized by the characters, especially Algernon who calls it "demoralizing," marriage is in fact what all the action of the play moves toward. For instance, Jack continually tries to secure Gwendolyn's hand in marriage and Algernon tries to get Cecily to marry him. Throughout these attempts absurdities frequently arise. For instance, when Algernon is pretending to be Ernest, Jack's younger and more mischievous brother, Cecily informs him that they have been engaged for approximately three months, even though this was the first actual meeting between the two. Another oddity is that all the main characters are aware that marria


The Victorian class system is also vastly criticized in the course of the play and it is done mainly through the vehicle of Lady Bracknell. Lady Bracknell, who represents the prototypical aristocrat, as she is stuffy, arrogant, and haughty, tries, on multiple occasions, to prevent any non-aristocrat from breaking the boundaries of the class-system by marrying into her family. For instance, Lady Bracknell is concerned about her daughter's prospective fiance's qualifications, and whether Jack's father was born in the "purple of commerce," or whether he rose "from the ranks of the aristocracy." Lady Bracknell's eventual rejection of Jack as a suitor because he was "born, or at any rate bred in a handbag" exaggerates the impenetrability of the London class-system to such an extent that its ridiculousness is humorous. On another occasion, the superficiality of the class-system is displayed as Lady Bracknell rejects Cecily as a possible wife of her nephew Algernon until it becomes known that Cecily is quite wealthy. Upon hearing this, Lady Bracknell quickly changes her opinion of Cecily Cardew and states, "Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her." The humor present in the sudden recantation of opinion exemplifies the irony deeply embedded in the Vic

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 872
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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