While today’s acceptance levels of the LGBT+ community are at the highest levels in modern history, for a long time the level of acceptance was a negative one. During the 1800s and some parts of the world today, being homosexual is thought to be a disease and/or crime. Writers who were apart of the LGBT+ community in the 1800s were marked by their sexuality. Their pieces of work, if even read, were ridiculed. Anything they did was placed below writings of their straight counterparts, no matter the skill of the author. A man who walked a fine line is Oscar Wilde. He lived in the later part of the 1800s, among the aristocrats of Victorian England. He lived a secret life as he married and had children, trying to fit with the societal standards.
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He critiques society to prove there are greater flaws and sins than his own feelings. In this play he toys with societal values of names vs honesty. His characters battle with this idea physically, their lovers love them partly for their name, Gwendolen mentions “My ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest,” (Wilde 1). Although her lover nor the lover of Cecily actual names’ are Earnest but in order Jack and Algernon. The whole play is a kind of aphorism, it certainly is full of them. One such observation of the title states, “The play’s title can be deceptive. Rather than a form of the name Ernest, the title implies earnestness as a quality one should seek to acquire, as in being honest, sincere, sober, and serious,” (importance importance). The title The Importance of Being Earnest is not only the name of the piece, but also serves as social commentary. Another critique of England is one that seems to vent Wilde’s frustrations for the lack of progress, “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever” (Wilde 1). This play and his other plays allow Wilde to express his frustrations with societal restrictions and values as well as his anger over the notable negative reactions from his
He critiques society to prove there are greater flaws and sins than his own feelings. In this play he toys with societal values of names vs honesty. His characters battle with this idea physically, their lovers love them partly for their name, Gwendolen mentions “My ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest,” (Wilde 1). Although her lover nor the lover of Cecily actual names’ are Earnest but in order Jack and Algernon. The whole play is a kind of aphorism, it certainly is full of them. One such observation of the title states, “The play’s title can be deceptive. Rather than a form of the name Ernest, the title implies earnestness as a quality one should seek to acquire, as in being honest, sincere, sober, and serious,” (importance importance). The title The Importance of Being Earnest is not only the name of the piece, but also serves as social commentary. Another critique of England is one that seems to vent Wilde’s frustrations for the lack of progress, “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever” (Wilde 1). This play and his other plays allow Wilde to express his frustrations with societal restrictions and values as well as his anger over the notable negative reactions from his