The Importance of Being Earnest: on love and marriage (love and marriage...)
A major theme in this play is love, relationships, marriage. Choose at least two characters and tell me about both their similar and differing views on love and marriage. What's the overall sense you get about Wilde's attitude toward marriage? Do you find this offensive? humorous? realistic? cynical? Point to a few specific points in the text and focus on those as you tell me what you think about this theme in the play (use page numbers and quotes when you refer to these places...).
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Wilde's attitude award marriage is far from kindly he enjoys the humor in poking fun of it and mocking the serouseness the kids share for getting engaged. I found it very funny that Cecily had almost an identical response as Gwendolen after being proposed to. This may come from Wilde thinking all marriages/engagements are the same old thing.
ReplyDeleteAustin Koch - Question 2 The Importance of Being Earnest
ReplyDeleteMarriage is by far the most important thing in this story. This play is basically an ongoing debate about the nature of marriage and whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. This book continuously talks about marriage. For example, before everyone gets married they must state their name, rank, and serial number. The serial number is how much your income is and how much money you have. Wilde’s attitude towards marriage is different because it seems like in his opinion, the regular rules of society just did not apply to him. Many of the rules of Wilde’s day were made a mockery throughout the story, so I think the reason he put these rules in the story, is because he disagreed with them. It is also obvious that Wilde thought all marriage was not something to be very serious about, especially when the kids wanted to get engaged and married.
Well Algernon thinks proposing is business, he thinks if your in love that's romantic but proposing is just not, in his opinion the very essence of romance is uncertainty. He pretty much says its ridiculous to flirt with your husband or wife. Then Jack thinks its pleasure to propose and is in love with Gwendolyn Algernons' cousin. I also like how Wilde says "romance is uncertainty" i agree. But i disagree where he has Algernon say proposing and after in unromantic, because you can still make it romantic you just have you to try. Some of his views are also mockingly humorous.
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