Assignment Paper no. 104 ( Literature of the Victorians )

• Name:- Payal Bambhaniya

• Batch :- M.A. Sem.1 ( 2022 - 2024 )

• Roll no. :- 16

• Paper no. & Name :- 104 - Literature of the Victorians 

• Assignment Topic:- Characters Study of the Play 'The Importance of Being Earnest'

• Subject code no. :- 22395

• Enrollment no. :- 4069206420220002

• Email Id :- payalbambhaniya92@gmail.com

• Submitted to:- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU.

Introduction:-

Character can be defined as any person or other being in a narrative such as a novel, play, television series or film. The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real life person in which case the distinction of a 'fictional' versus 'real' character maybe made. There are many types of characters that exist in literature, each with its own development and function. The general purpose of characters is to extend the plot. Many stories employ multiple types of characters. There are many ways to categorise main characters: protagonist or antagonist, dynamic or static character. The study of a character requires an Analysis of its relations with all of the other characters in the work. Here I discuss characters of the play The Importance of Being Earnest. 

About Writer:-

Oscar Wilde ( 1854 - 1900 ):-

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and Dramatist. Wilde was born of professional and literary parents. His father, Sir William Wilde, was Ireland's leading ear and surgeon, who also published books on archaeology, folklore, and the satirist Jonathan Swift. He was a spokesman for the late 19th century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art's shake, and he was object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment. His Notable works are below.

• A Woman of No Importance
• Lady Windermere's Fan
• The Importance of Being Earnest
• The picture of Dorian Gray
• Salome 

The Importance of Being Earnest:-

The Importance of Being Earnest in full The Importance of Being Earnest: A trivial Comedy for Serious People. It is a play and it's divided into three acts by Oscar Wilde. It was performed in 1895 and published in 1899. It is a Farcical Comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious persona to escape burdensome social obligations. A satire of Victoria social hypocrisy, the witty play is considered Wilde's greatest dramatic achievements. Jack Worthing is athe protagonist of the play. He is a Fashionable Young man who leads a double life. He lives in the country with his ward, Cecily Cardew. He has invested in a rakhish brother named Ernest whose supposed exploits give Jack an excuse to travel to London periodically to rescue him. Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the Cousin of his friend Algernon Moncrieff. Gwendolen, who thinks Jack's name is Earnest, returns his love, but her mother, Lady Bracknell, objects to their marriage because Jack is an orphan who was found in a handbag at Victoria station. Jack impersonates Earnest in order to woo Cecily, who has always been in love with the imaginary rogue Ernest. Ultimately it is revealed that Jack is really Lady Bracknell's Nephew, and that Algernon is actually his brother. The play ends with both couples happily United. Characters of the play are below.

• Jack Worthing
• Algernon Moncrieff
• Gwendolen Fairfax
• Cecily Cardew
• Lady Bracknell
• Miss Prism
• Canon Chasuble
• Merriman

Character of Jack Worthing:-

Jack Worthing is the protagonist of the play. He has grown up to be a seemingly responsible and respectable young man, a major landowner and justice of the peace in Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate. In Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate. In Hertfordshire, where he is known by what he imagines to be his real name. Jack, he is a pillar of the community.

Jack Worthing is a guardian to Mr. Cardew's granddaughter, Cicely and has other duties and people who depend on him. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Ernest, whom he is always having to bail out of some mischief. In fact, he himself is the reprobate brother  of Earnest.

Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, where he really goes on these occasions. More than any other character in the play. Jack Worthing represents conventional Victorian values: he wants others to think he adheres to such notions as duty, honor, and respectability. But he Hypocritically flouts those very notions. Indeed, what wilde was actually satirizing through Jack Was the general tolerance for hypocrisy in conventional Victorian morality. Jack uses his alter-ego Ernest enables Jack to escape the boundaries of his real identity. Ernest provides a convenient excuse and disguise for Jack and Jack feels no qualms about involving Ernest whenever necessary.

Jack wants to be seen as upright and moral. But he doesn't care what lies he has to tell his loved ones in order to be able to misbehave. Though Ernest has always been Jack's unsavory alter ego, as the play progresses Jack must aspire to become Ernest, in name if not behaviour. Untill he seeks to marry Gwendolen, Jack has used Ernest as an escape from real life, but Gwendolen's fixation on the name Ernest obligates Jack to embrace his deception in order to pursue the real life he desires. Jack has always managed to get what he wants by using Ernest as his fallback. And his lie eventually threatens to undo him. Though Jack never really gets his comeuppance. He must scramble to reconcile his two worlds in order to get what he ultimately desires and to fully understand who he is. So the whole play is based on this character. Thus, we can say that Jack Worthing's character is most important in the play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Character of Gwendolen Fairfax :-

Gwendolen Fairfax is a female character in the play. Gwendolen suggests the qualities of conventional Victorian womanhood. She is artificial and pretentious. Gwendolen is in love with Jack. Whom she knows as Ernest and she is fixed on this name. This preoccupation serves as a metaphor for the preoccupation of the Victorian middle and upper middle classes with the appearance of virtue and honor. Gwendolen is so caught up in finding a husband named Ernest, whose name, she says, "inspires absolute confidence", that she can't even see that the man calling himself Ernest is fooling her with an extensive deception. In this way, her own image consciousness blurs her judgement.

Though more self consciously intellectual than Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen is cut from very much the same Cloth as her mother. She is similarly strong minded and speaks with unassailable authority on matters of taste and morality, just as Lady Bracknell does. She is both a model and an arbiter of elegant fashion and sophistication. And nearly everything she says and does is calculated for effect. As Jack fears, Gwendolen does indeed show signs of becoming her mother " in about a hundred and fifty years", but she is likeable, as is Lady Bracknell, because her pronunciation is so outrageous. So, we can say that the character of Gwendolen Fairfax is important in the play.

Character of Cecily Cardew:-

Cecily Cardew is another female character of the play. If Gwendolen is a product of London high society, Cecily is its antithesis. She is a child of nature, as ingenious and unspoiled as a pink rose, to which Algernon compares her in Act II. Her ingenuity is believed by her fascination with wickedness. She is obsessed with the name Ernest just as Gwendolen is, but wickedness is primarily what leads her to fall in love with Uncle Jack's brother, whose reputation is wayward enough to intrigue her like Algernon and Jack, she is a Fantasist. She has invented her romance with Ernest and elaborated it with as much artistry and enthusiasm as the men have their spurious obligations and secret identities. 

Though she does not have an alter ego as vivid or developed as Bunbury or Ernest, her claim that she and Algernon/Ernest are already engaged is rooted in the fantasy world she's created around Ernest. Cecily is probably the most realistically drawn character in the play, and she is the only character who does not speak in epigrams. Her charm lies in her idiosyncratic cast of mind and her imaginative capacity, qualities that derive from wilde's notion of life as a work of art. These elements of her personality make her a perfect mate for Algernon.

Character of Algernon Moncrieff :-

The play's secondary hero. Algernon is a charming , idle, decorative bachelor, nephew of Lady Bracknell, Cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing. Whom he has known for years as Ernest. Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral, and given to making delightful paradoxical. He has invented a fictional friend, "Bunbury", an invalid whose frequent sudden relapse allow Algernon to wriggle out of unpleasant or dull social obligations.

Character of Miss Prism:-

Miss Prism is Cecily's governess. Miss Prism is an endless source of pedantic bromides and cliches. She highly approves of Jack's presumed respectability and harshly criticizes his "unfortunate" brother. Puritan though she is, Miss prism's severe pronouncements have a way of going so far over the top that they inspire laughter. Despite her rigidity, Miss Prism seems to have a softer side. She speaks of having once written a novel whose manuscript was "lost" or abandoned. Also, she entertains romantic feelings for Dr. Chasuble.

Character of Lady Bracknell:-

Lady Bracknell is Algernon's aunt and Gwendolen's mother. Lady Bracknell married well, and her primary goal in life is to see her Daughter do the same. She has a list of "eligible young men" and a prepared interview she gives to potential suites. Like her nephew, Lady Bracknell is given to making hilarious pronouncements, but where Algernon means to be witty, the humour in Lady Bracknell's speeches is unintentional. Through the figure of lady Bracknell, wilde manages satirizes the hypocrisy and stupidity of the British aristocrat. Lady Bracknell values ignorance, which she sees as a delicate exotic fruit. When she gives a dinner party. She prefers her husband to eat downstairs with the servants. She is cunning, narrow- minded. Authoritarian and possibly the most quotable character in the play. So, we can say that character of Lady Bracknell is also important in the play. So all the above characters are major characters in the play Jude the Obscure and other are minor.

Conclusion:-

Thus, we can say that Jack Worthing's character plays a very vital role in the play The Importance of Being Earnest. Both the female characters are also very important in the play. The whole story goes around these characters. So these all characters are very important in the play The Importance of Being Earnest. 

Thank you for reading this Assignment.

Word count :- 1,774

Image :- 8

References:-

Beckson, Karl. "Oscar Wilde". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Oct. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde. Accessed 5 November 2022.

Campodonico, Christina. "The Importance of Being Earnest Characters." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 14 Apr 2014. Web. 5 Nov 2022.