Satire In The Importance Of Being Ernest

Satire is designed to criticize or tease a certain subject or thing, usually for the reason of comedy. “The Importance of Being Earnest,” by Oscar Wilde includes lots of satire, criticizing social class, gender, and marriage. I will give some examples from each of the ACT’s, and also give a description of the points that showcase satire in this piece. There is many examples of satire referring to class. The first is the simple fact that what side of the street you live on determines how your fashion is. This is satire because it’s not correct, and is making fun of the high class people by showing how petty and senseless they can be. Another example is the idea that sugar is associated as a low class food item. This is satire for the exact same reason as the first example. People of this time didn’t actually consider sugar a low class food item, this is simply the writer’s way of showcasing satire. Last, but not least, another example of social class satire is that upper class people always talk about other people’s business, instead of their …show more content…
Wilde clearly utilizes farce in the piece to illustrate the mind thought process of the upper social class on marriage. It’s shown that Gwendolen actually does loves Jack, but she puts greater importance on dumb-minded, irrelevant factors like a person’s name, which is something a person has zero control over. This is the author using satire to show how lots of people during this time actually married for the benefit of what they would receive, instead of truly marrying from the sense of love. In Act Three Cecily asks Algy if he would be okay to wait until she was thirty-five years old to get married, even though Algy tells her yes, Cecily simply tells him she cannot. You would think after dreaming of the man she claims to love, waiting to be married would be a simple favor to