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Marta (Pec) 's essay

If Oscar Wilde, the famous writer who describes the hypocrisy of his time, had lived nowadays he could have been two different figures: a psychologist or an influencer.

In the first case he could have been a psychologist, and so the expert of human mind, because he writes about human beings and their minds or their attitudes. For example in his major work, "The Picture of Dorian Gray", he analyzes the protagonist: a young man who sells his soul in order to eternal beauty.
In the second situation he could have been an influencer because of his personality. At his time he was a bohemian and a dandy: he was eccentric and elegant, he loved being observed and being at the center of the attention. At the same time he rejected the rules and didn't follow the mass. For this reason he would have been a perfect influencer that dictates his lifestyles.
Moreover Oscar Wilde could have been an author nowadays, because for him writing is necessary. He probably would have written the same things but in a different way, because his themes are still current nowadays. In fact his main themes are: the coexistence of good and evil, the timeless beauty and the absence of morality. He could talk about good and evil, not related with God, devil or religion, but related with morality:"every excess must be punished". In order to write about beauty he could talk about self-acceptance and what people do for beauty: plastic surgery, beauty treatments, follow fashions, tattoos,...
In addition, another main theme in Oscar Wilde is current nowadays:people. People who are like Dorian Gray: shallow and superficial; in fact his own words are: "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing".
To conclude I can say that if Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he could have been Oscar Wilde.

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“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing”

This phrase taken from the Picture of Dorian Gray is actually able to paint today’s society even if the novel was written in the late nineteenth century. Consumerism forms the basis of nowadays: it allows us to buy new products even if useless and then to get rid of them so to buy new ones. It’s a continuous loop that never sees an ending. That’s what happens with fashion: it changes so quickly without noticing it and, as Oscar Wilde writes, consumers don’t perceive the value of what they have and buy even if they know the price. Nowadays, this situation is powered by the significant role played by the technology. It has pros and cons: it simplifies our life from on hand providing new tools and facilities; however, from the other, it is really harmful because we are more vulnerable and tend to compare our life with other people’s. Considering the fact that we all are registered into the world of social networks, it’s a widespread phenomenon we cannot neglect. In this panorama, beauty is an essential element in which everyone aspires to. Furthermore, Wilde wasn’t simply a great writer, he was also a fashion icon for everyone. Indeed, if we pay attention to the paintings in which he has been portrayed, we see that he is always elegant: he usually wears sophisticated clothes made of silk and velvet. At a later time, his state-of-the-art style inspired some designers who organized fashion shows in the footsteps of the dandy from Ireland.

If the poet had lived nowadays, he would have certainly been influenced by the aspects mentioned before such as social media and technology that lead us to prefer what takes less time and what is more immediate to long descriptions and heavy texts full of adjectives. From the point of view of the style of the poet of that period, accurate words and adjectives are favoured: they make the reader imagine the detailed scene. Moreover, referring to the senses, synesthesias are used in order to ornate his piece of art (as we can see in “Basil’s studio” , the extract from the picture of Dorian Gray read, in class ). In contrast, he would have probably changed his way of communicating and made it simple but he would have certainly been a point of reference for the others as he was during his lifetime.

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Our consumistic CONSUMERIST / MATERIALISTIC society is based on the value of Beauty, which is the most important thing ASPECT/VALUE of  in human’s life, according to Oscar Wilde: so if this Irish artist had lived nowadays, would he have followed the same trends of our society?

Firstly, he considers the Beauty as the source of inspiration of the Artist, who has an excessive attention to himself. In his famous novel “The picture of Dorian Gray” he highlights the fact that the painter Basil Hallward decides to portray Dorian Gray because of his charm.
In the sense of now influencers instrumentalize art and beauty to become famous and to earn money.
So we can say that certainly Oscar Wilde would HAVE  be certainly BEEN successful in our times.

Secondly, HAD HE LIVED NOWADAYS, OSCAR WILDE would be HAVE BEEN a businessman, because he believes that wealth has plays an important role in human’s life; indeed one of his famous aphorisms is :“ When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is”.
But HOWEVER, on the other hand, he also expresses his idea about that society:“ We live in a age when unnecessary things are only necessities”.
This statement is still true nowadays, because we live in a consumistic  CONSUMERIST / MATERIALISTIC reality, we always need material things and we don’t give the right importance to real values, like family, love...

To sum up, Oscar Wilde is CAN considered a modern artist, since DUE TO the fact that “The picture of Dorian Gray’s Preface” is still topical nowadays: Wilde points out many things that characterise the society of the XXII century.

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"Dealing with thinkers and writers, novelists and poets belonging to 19th Century's Britain is completely useless: there's no link to be found that could possibly connect different authors, and literary and philosophical movements are only very few and basically meaningless, with neither relevance whatsoever nor impact on present times and nowadays important issues"... Anon.
Is it really so?...

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have probably been an influencer because (is) he was a Dandy man. Owing to his passion for trends and his way of dressing. In addition, he would also have been a model for Gucci or Armani suits.

Firstly, he would have been such an inspiration for teenagers, who see our nowadays celebrities like gods. I think he would have had more followers than Chiara Ferragni, because it is not so usual to be a stylish man and an influencer at the same time. In my view, he would have done such interesting and captivating IGTV, because he would have spoken about his thoughts, about some modern issues like violence against women, climate change or immigrants.

Secondly, he would have made a TV series inspired by his best seller: ‘’ The Picture Of Dorian Gray’’. I truly believe that it would have been a great success and as a result of that, he would certainly have had a sequel.

Personally, I think he would also have been an actor of in a film inspired by his novels or in a documentary on his life, that which I find so fascinating and inspiring. This documentary would have been put on Netflix and it would’ve had more success than the one about the life of Travis Scott.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that the extracts that we have read could have been perfect for a film, because of the detailed way of Oscar Wilde made use in describing the setting and the characters. In addition, I think that the peculiar behave behaviour of the characters could have been so thought-provoking in a TV series or in a film.

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Oscar Wilde was known as a disciple of Walter Pater accepting the theory of “Art for Art’s sake”. Actually, he thought that Aestheticism was a search for the beautiful, a science trough which men looked for the relationship between painting and poetry.

Nowadays, Oscar Wilde would surely have been an artist like in the past and a very well-known person thanks to his skill in speaking.

Moreover, he had an extravagant way of dressing and he influenced other people among which many women, who started wearing lilies like him, and also many men wore them in the buttonholes of their coats. Today he would surely have been an “influencer”.

In addiction addition, he had two children with Constance Lloyd but he soon became tired of his marriage and he had a homosexual affair. Despite this, Oscar Wilde in the present where the discussion on gay marriages is very heated, would not have been on the side of gays: This is caused by his disappointment with his previous relationships. Indeed, he regretted his homosexual relations by blaming his father for not allowing him to convert to catholicism.

Furthermore, he would have been a man who would not have given up fun and passions as it can be seen from this quote of his: “ Follies are the only things we never regret.” Even though he had been cruelly criticized for his life of excesses, just like even today many ones are trough through social networks, he would not have been discouraged and he would have always fought for his ideals.

To conclude, Oscar Wilde had innovative toughts thoughts: he was convinced that Beauty was the only pursuit which was worth for man Human Beings and so He lived a life marked by the search of Art, pleasure and perfection, which are the same values that we can find today in a society also based on appearance and aesthetic values.

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Oscar Wilde was an author, playwright and poet, one of the most popular literary figures during the final period of the Victorian Age. Therefore, he is well remembered and studied nowadays by all of us. In this context, it would be extremely intriguing and captivating to ask ourselves this question: if Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, would he have been so popular?

Let's start by saying that he would have been a great writer even nowadays, but he would have been better known worldwide thanks to the advent of the internet. Furthermore, he would have been a celebrity, he would have had an Instagram account with many followers, he would have been a fashionable man and he would have got on the front pages of the magazines. Moreover he would have undoubtedly been a nonconformist and he would have probably criticized his contemporaries, if they hadn't understood his intent to live a life as if it were a work of art. Indeed he would have based his life on originality and diversity and consequently he would have been beloved, hated and envied by people. Unfortunately, he would have been the victim of numerous prejudices because of his homosexuality. Last but not least, he would have charmed people through his brilliant way of writing and his phenomenal ability to incorporate aspects of both fantasy and realism into his works.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that Oscar Wilde would have been strongly popular and influential even nowadays thanks to his genius.

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IF OSCAR WILDE HAD LIVED NOWADAYS...
According to the French writer Emile Zola, people are heavily influenced by three main factors which determine their lives: their social milieu and time, their character and their hereditary traits.

Although we cannot estimate how the last two would have changed through time, it surely is possible to ask ourselves how the Irish genius Oscar Wilde would have lived nowadays, had he been alive. Would he have found comfort in a society that gives such relevance to Beauty or would he have continued to be the upstream intellectual that he was at the end of the 19th century?

It has to be reckoned that our society and social values have drastically changed since the 1900's and that behaviours that were not allowed or were considered inappropriate then, are fully accepted now. As a matter of fact, as long as our actions are not harmful towards other people or against the law, everything is accepted. As a consequence, not a single person today would make a scandal out of the themes narrated in Wilde's most notorious novel “The picture of Dorian Gray”.

Furthermore, our society is deeply beauty-based  HEDONIST, MATERIALISTIC AND BASED ON THE CULT OF BEAUTY: everything seems to revolve around the AN ideal of Perfection. If at the time of Oscar Wilde it was money and wealth that divided the society in classes, nowadays it is Beauty. As soon as someone is not able to keep up with the latest fashion trends, this person becomes an outcast, someone to avoid at all costs. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to believe that Oscar Wilde, a great believer and supporter of the Aesthetic movement and a Dandy, would have been part of the “Beauty elite” and would have himself been a trend creator.

I am strongly convinced that if he had existed in our society, Oscar Wilde would not have been an opposer of its morality but that, on the contrary, he would have given full support to this “hierarchy of Beauty” and that he would have been too caught up in this carefully-crafted world of artifice and perfection to care about social issues.
To conclude, if Oscar Wilde had lived today, I believe he would have been at ease in our society, being free to live his life as he wanted without having to comply to WITH strict moral rules.

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If  Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have certainly been an “influencer”.

He was defined as “Dandy”, which means a person who places particular importance upon physical appearance. As a matter of fact, he soon became a fashionable and fascinating  man, who appeared in the most important London magazines.
For this reason, Oscar Wilde is more contemporary than we think. Firstly, without using the Internet or smartphones, he managed to influence lots of people. For instance, as a tribute to his dandified Aestheticism, women and many young men wore lilies in the buttonholes of their coats. Nowadays it is nearly the same: teenagers follow the trends of their favorite influencers.

Secondly, the Bohémien, focused on the idea of Beauty, which is the same like we perceive today. In “the Picture of Dorian Gray” the writer describes flowers in order to evocate sensations; in the first chapter you can find: ”the studio was filled with the rich odor of roses”. Put differently, Wilde celebrated every kind of sensation, filling each passing movement with intense experience. (In any case, the moral idea of the 21 st century is the same.)

Furthermore, during his life he reflected on the idea of popularity and one of his most famous mottoes WAS ”Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity”. In fact, this vision is in keeping with our society: many politicians, singers, you tubers  considered popular are truly undistinguished. Had Wilde been alive nowadays, he would have been a different one: he despised ignorance, that WHICH FOR ARISTOCRATIC PEOPLE WAS “like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone”.
Finally, he did not accept the strict Victorian moral code, since he was subversive and extremely different.
IN CONCLUSION, I WOULD STATE THAT THERE IS BASICALLY (At this point you can find) a great difference: nowadays people think they are free, whereas we are all the same. We live in the illusion to be free, but we are always influenced by the others.

By comparison, Oscar Wilde was unique and he knew it.

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, would he have been living in the same way he had lived in his late Victorian century period? Definitely not. The place where he lived, in addition to the social context, influenced a lot his life a lot, and more precisely his thought. In any case , would he still have been so famous?

Oscar Wilde was an eccentric personality at of the end of 19th Century. Due to his excessive attention to the Self, he developed a new trend between artists, based on a scrupulous care ness ATTENTION TO the exterior aspect, in order to appear polished, REFINED AND 'BEAUTIFUL'.
In fact, in portraits he's easily recognisable: certainly if he had HE lived nowadays, he would have surely influenced our attitudes, promoting his way of dressing properly as a lifestyle. Of course, he would have been suddenly copied, due to his charming beauty.

Besides his influencing fashion, Oscar WILDE would probably still have been the writer we have always known since our days. Maybe he would MIGHT have equally written The Picture of Dorian Gray, using the same carachters and the same situation, but the setting would have surely changed. Anyway , he would have seen innumerable copies of his novel left on book shop's shelves, because Literature is hardly difficult to be read nowadays.

Personally, I think he would have felt as lonely as he really was in his Century, due to his profound sensitive temper personality. In fact, even if today IT is easier to accept homosexual relationships, it is still difficult to find open minded people everywhere. Thus, I am convinced that the incomprehension of people would have brought him to commit suicide.

However, HAD HE BEEN ALIVE NOW, Oscar WILDE would have been developing his thoughts in a consumistic CONSUMERIST society: as a consequence, he would have totally rejected the moral ideals of our society and I am sure he would have complained about it in his novels, or maybe instagram's posts. Anycase Anyway, he would still have been one of the best artists the world has ever seen.

To conclude, his incomparable charm would have enchanted all girls around the streets. He would HAVE probably got engaged with TO a famous model, for example Charlize Theron, and they would have travelled together to sunny beaches, even if Oscar WILDE's pallor would have been a problem. By the way, his brilliant career as a writer - and why not as an actor -  would have brought him to success and HE WOULD HAVE always BEEN remembered in our hearts.

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, what would he have probably thought about our society? Would he have liked to be part of it?
AS A MATTER OF FACT, The Victorian Age was quite different from our times: HOWEVER, but Oscar Wilde's way of thinking was not so far from nowadays'.
In light of this TAKING THIS IDEA INTO ACCOUNT, I would suggest two principles TO SUPPORT THIS STATEMENT, on which the writer based his lifestyle - WEALTH AND BEAUTY.

TO BEGIN WITH, let's QUOTE one of his famous mottoes: "When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is".
Wilde was born in a rich family, he attended the best schools and used to take part in the high society. He became a fashionable dandy for his extravagant way of dressing, he basically became a 'normal citizen' of our society.
He would have probably appreciated the importance of money and richness WEALTH which is the ("driving engine") LEADING PRINCIPLE of nowadays politics.

SECONDLY, as Literature teaches us, the concept of Beauty is a beginning and an end in Oscar Wilde's life. This is widely held EVIDENT in his great AND ONLY novel "The picture of Dorian Gray" where Beauty is something essential: ONE COULD STATE THAT, HAD OSCAR WILDE LIVED NOWADAYS, undoubtedly he would have loved our surgical means to reach eternal Beauty.
The real Beauty, not the one limited to a picture!
In light of this OSCAR WILDE used to say: " It's better to be beautiful than to be good...but... it's better to be good than to be ugly" AND THIS FURTHER CLARIFY HIS POSITION IN RELATION TO BEAUTY AS A LEADING PRINCIPLE IN LIFE, WHICH IS TRUE NOWADAYS AS WELL.

IN CONCLUSION, HAD OSCAR WILDE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, I would say that HE could have been a man of our times:  a great author who would have been appreciated for (all the) MANY aspects of his behaviour.

IN ADDITION TO THAT, he wouldn't have been judged for his sexual tendencies nor his works would have been considered immoral.

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have been a revolutionary man, with his extraordinary wit and his extravagant way of dressing.
At the time he was seen as a bad example, he wasn’t to be listened to and followed, but instead today the transgression HE PORTRAYED AND INCARNATED of which he spoke, are is seen as an example of a struggle for his ONE’S own wishes and desires.

The writer was a satirist of Victorian sensibilities.  HYPOCRISY he was concerned with the way in which the institution of private property obstructs the free development of the personality.
Wilde was a moral rebel, he expressed freely (his sexuality in his writing) NEW THEMES AND DEALT WITH NEW TOPICS: for example, in the Picture of Dorian Gray, he describes a kind of life made of drugs, sex and murders.
Furthermore his vision was based on Beauty, as we can see in the extract “I would give my soul” where he says: “Beauty is a form of genius, it needs no explanation, it has its divine right of souvereignty”, “Beauty is the wonder of wonders”.
He maintains, in this text, that Beauty is found in youth and the only way to stop time is precisely the Art of beauty. The writer’s task is to feel sensations and to be attentive to the attractive. As a result, Art does not have to do with morality and MUST NOT be didactic.
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All this happens also in today’s society that thinks about the external world and every form of beauty, which does not concern in the inner aspect.

To conclude we can affirme STATE that today’s society has much in common with the thought of Oscar Wilde and that even today he would still be an important thinker and a writer to take as an example.

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If Oscar Wilde has HAD lived nowadays, he would have probably been a famous person known for his beauty and eccentric personality. Certainly he would have been a celebrity followed by a lot of fans, a great speaker and an 'influencer'.

Moreover he would not have left the society change his personality even though his choices could be considered immoral. In my opinion he would have lived a life full of parties, pleasures and excesses without regrets. He would have been a courageous man without the fear of saying what he thought. He would have had all the social networks with which he would have worked in order to spread his own message of freedom and happiness. With his photos, he would have shared the importance of Beauty represented by painting, sculpture and poetry, which are simply different forms of the same truth.

He would have persuaded a lot of people, with his charming speeches, to follow him and his new way of seeing things. The secret of his success would have been his own beauty because as he said in his book NOVEL “The Picture of Dorian Gray ”Beauty is a form of genius - IT is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation (...) it cannot be questioned".

In addition TO THAT, he would have lived every single moment of his life in the best possible way because “What the gods give they quickly take away”, and we have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly and fully. We have to realise  FULFIL our youth while we have it in order to draw the best from it.

In conclusion, HAD OSCAR WILDE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, he would have been the perfect man who nowadays  has success in the world of Social Networks.

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Oscar Wilde was born at the end of the 19th century and he was one of the most important authors of the late Victorian age. Not only he is HE known for his SHORT stories and plays, but he is also known for his peculiar personality. Indeed Oscar Wilde is considered one of the first Dandies of his time and he supported Aestheticism, which he described as a search for the Beautiful, a science through which men looked for the relationship existing between different forms of Art, which were simply different aspects of the same truth.

If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have probably been that kind of figure, who manages to influence other people’s ideas because of his strong values, which do not always coincide with the moral of his time. In my opinion, as far as Wilde is concerned, nowadays he would have probably been a famous photographer, because of his attention to details, which can be noticed also in the descriptions that he uses in his first and only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Grey”.

“The Picture of Dorian Grey” is an extremly intriguing novel, because it helps the readers to understand what were the ideas related to Beauty and individuals behind Wilde’s works. Wilde shared the aesthetic idea of “Art for Art’s sake”, and he considered the Artist as the only one who had the capability of feeling sensations, but he also used his art to denounce the corruption, the bad conscience and the immorality of the Victorian middle class, showing that Art is, in fact, the only thing that survives in the end.

From my point of view, Wilde’s ideas about Art and society - such as “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing” ('The Picture of Dorian Grey') - can be considered very actual issues, which could be perfectly handeld by an eclectic personality such as Wilde’s one also in the current reality and with other forms of Art, such as photography, which can be perfectly used to describe and denounce certain aspects of modern society.

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"The Importance of Being Earnest" - 1:58/6:00

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"The Importance of Being Earnest" - 1:58/6:00

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The Importance of Being Earnest (1986). Part 2 of 11

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'The Importance of Being Earnest' - Act 1

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'The Importance of Being Earnest' - Act 1

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Oscar Wilde was one of the most important authors of the Nineteenth Century. He was a distinctive personality for his eccentric attitude. In fact, his work was influenced by Walter Pater’s theories of Aestheticism. This Movement’s main idea was that only Art can reveal Beauty, so it pushed people to live their lives “in the spirit of Art”: this means, to live every moment intensely. For reasons that I will explain later, we can find this aesthetic theories in Wilde’s novel “The picture of Dorian Gray”.

BUT if Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would…

Firstly, he would certainly HAVE BEEN a street-artist.

I am convinced that HAD HE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, Wilde would HAVE BEEN a street-artist because of his personality. We know that he liked to dress in an extravagant way. In fact, he liked to be “unique”, to be recognisable by everyone. Moreover, he liked to be different from the others, just like some street-artists nowadays, who often dress in an extravagant way to be more visible by passers-by and to attract more people to see what they do.

Secondly, he would HAVE BEEN like the protagonist of his novel: Dorian Gray.

Dorian Gray is an eccentric person who becomes obsessed with his appearance after discovering to be extremely beautiful. More specifically, it is a “revelation” that comes from a speech made by Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of his. This speech can be read in the extract “I would give my soul”. In fact, the first part of the text is a long speech that Wotton gives to try to explain to Mr. Gray how beautiful he is and that he doesn’t have to waste the short time of his youth. He says that “you have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it”. We can also notice that he is explaining the theme of the “carpe diem”, that means, to live fully without worrying about anything. As I mentioned in the introduction, this is also one of the main ideas of the Aesthetic Movement.

Moreover, HAD HE BEEN ALIVE, Wilde would have also beeen an “antisocial person”.

I would define him as an “antisocial person” because of his strange attitude towards the world. On one hand, I imagine him as a silent person, who always sees everything but who doesn’t intervene in any conversation; on the other hand, I imagine a person that, as soon as he gets home, takes inspiration from what he had seen during the day to write down novels. So, in simple words, I imagine him as a snobbish v.i.p. who doesn’t care about his fans and who pretends that they don’t exist when they ask him to take a selfie with them.

In conclusion...

This is how I would imagine Oscar Wilde if he had lived nowadays. I am convinced that his personality would HAVE BEEN highly influenced by his novels and that he would HAVE PROVED a very interesting, but somehow creepy person.

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If Oscar Wilde had lived nowadays, he would have probably been a brilliant artist and a famous influencer:

I think he would have written more novels - not just one -  HAD HE BEEN alive now, because today’s people could support his works more than the end of XIX Century's society could do.

Nowadays, young adults love those who come up with new ideas that stand out from the crowd: teenagers admire people who want to buck the trend.
As everyone knows, Oscar Wilde was a dandy, his eccentricity would have inspired many of us.

Moreover, HAD WILDE BEEN ALIVE NOWADAYS, he would have influenced our lives from the point of view of the physical appearance. I am thinking about something that has become fundamental for us: fashion. He would have posted thousands pictures of himself in extravagant clothes. He would not have used Instagram only,  but also other social media, for example Twitter. This platform is vital for those who express themselves  with words. He would have written lots of thought-provoking tweets about Art and its meaning. He would have favoured Synaesthesia to communicate in an effective way with his followers. Maybe one of his Instagram caption would might have been: “There are perfumes fresh like the skin of infants” (verse 9, “Correspondances”, Baudelaire).

Even though two hundred years have passed, Beauty is still a current issue: Wilde would have written “The Picture of Dorian Gray” if he had been alive nowadays anyway.
In 2019, the authour would have felt even more the connection between painter and painting because nowadays lots of artist “listen” to their feelings and transfer them on a canvas exactly how Basil did: “I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself in it” (lines 39-40 from the excerpt “Basil’s studio”).

Finally, I can state that Wilde is a modern author because he would have succeeded in the XXI century too.

Silvia S. 5AL

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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.

Puns

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the pun, widely considered to be the lowest form of verbal wit, is rarely just a play on words. The pun in the title is a case in point. The earnest/Ernest joke strikes at the very heart of Victorian notions of respectability and duty. Gwendolen wants to marry a man called Ernest, and she doesn't care whether the man actually possesses the qualities that comprise earnestness. She is, after all, quick to forgive Jack's deception. In embodying a man who is initially neither "earnest" nor "Ernest," and who, through forces beyond his control, subsequently becomes both "earnest" and "Ernest," Jack is a walking, breathing paradox and a complex symbol of Victorian hypocrisy.

In Act III, when Lady Bracknell quips that until recently she had no idea there were any persons "whose origin was a Terminus," she too is making an extremely complicated pun. The joke is that a railway station is as far back as Jack can trace his identity and therefore a railway station actually is his "origin," hence the pun. In Wilde's day, as in the England of today, the first stop on a railway line is known as the "origin" and the last stop as the "terminus." There's also a whole series of implicit subsidiary puns on words like line and connection that can refer to either ancestry or travel. Wilde is poking fun at Lady Bracknell's snobbery. He depicts her as incapable of distinguishing between a railway line and a family line, social connections and railway connections, a person's ancestral origins and the place where he chanced to be found. In general, puns add layers of meaning to the characters' lines and call into question the true or intended meaning of what is being said.

Inversion

One of the most common motifs in The Importance of Being Earnest is the notion of inversion, and inversion takes many forms. The play contains inversions of thought, situation, and character, as well as inversions of common notions of morality or philosophical thought. When Algernon remarks, "Divorces are made in Heaven," he inverts the cliché about marriages being "made in heaven." Similarly, at the end of the play, when Jack calls it "a terrible thing" for a man to discover that he's been telling the truth all his life, he inverts conventional morality. Most of the women in the play represent an inversion of accepted Victorian practices with regard to gender roles. Lady Bracknell usurps the role of the father in interviewing Jack, since typically this was a father's task, and Gwendolen and Cecily take charge of their own romantic lives, while the men stand by watching in a relatively passive role. The trick that Wilde plays on Miss Prism at the end of the play is also a kind of inversion: The trick projects onto the play's most fervently moralistic character the image of the "fallen woman" of melodrama.

Death

Jokes about death appear frequently in The Importance of Being Earnest. Lady Bracknell comes onstage talking about death, and in one of the play's many inversions, she says her friend Lady Harbury looks twenty years younger since the death of her husband. With respect to Bunbury, she suggests that death is an inconvenience for others-she says Bunbury is "shilly-shallying" over whether "to live or to die." On being told in Act III that Bunbury has died suddenly in accordance with his physicians' predictions, Lady Bracknell commends Bunbury for acting "under proper medical advice." Miss Prism speaks as though death were something from which one could learn a moral lesson and piously says she hopes Ernest will profit from having died. Jack and Algernon have several conversations about how to "kill" Jack's imaginary brother. Besides giving the play a layer of dark humor, the death jokes also connect to the idea of life being a work of art. Most of the characters discuss death as something over which a person actually has control, as though death is a final decision one can make about how to shape and color one's life.

The Dandy

To the form of Victorian melodrama, Wilde contributed the figure of the dandy, a character who gave the form a moral texture it had never before possessed. In Wilde's works, the dandy is a witty, overdressed, self-styled philosopher who speaks in epigrams and paradoxes and ridicules the cant and hypocrisy of society's moral arbiters. To a very large extent, this figure was a self-portrait, a stand-in for Wilde himself. The dandy isn't always a comic figure in Wilde's work. In A Woman of No Importance and The Picture of Dorian Gray, he takes the form of the villains Lord Illingworth and Lord Henry Wootton, respectively. But in works such as Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde seems to be evolving a more positive and clearly defined moral position on the figure of the dandy. The dandy pretends to be all about surface, which makes him seem trivial, shallow, and ineffectual. Lord Darlington and Lord Goring (in Lady Windermere's Fan and An Ideal Husband) both present themselves this way. In fact, the dandy in both plays turns out to be something very close to the real hero. He proves to be deeply moral and essential to the happy resolution of the plot.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon has many characteristics of the dandy, but he remains morally neutral throughout the play. Many other characters also express dandiacal sentiments and views. Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell are being dandiacal when they assert the importance of surfaces, style, or "profile," and even Jack echoes the philosophy of the dandy when he comes onstage asserting that "pleasure" is the only thing that should "bring one anywhere." For the most part, these utterances seem to be part of Wilde's general lampooning of the superficiality of the upper classes. The point is that it's the wrong sort of superficiality because it doesn't recognize and applaud its own triviality. In fact, Cecily, with her impatience with self-improvement and conventional morality and her curiosity about "wickedness," is arguably the character who, after Algernon, most closely resembles the dandy. Her dandiacal qualities make her a perfect match for him.

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A summary of Motifs in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of The Importance of Being Earnest and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.