The Importance of Being Ernest, Essay Example

Literary Realism Elements in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest

Realist artists give a factual description of events without idealization. The purpose of literary realism is to describe a society in its basic form without any alterations. Some realistic authors employ literary realism elements such as symbols and motifs to describe society’s social problems without giving the audience room to idealize them. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest is a realistic text adapted into a film under the same title. Wilde employs elements of literary realism to describe class relations and depict class relations in nineteenth-century British society.

Wilde uses these elements of literary realism in The Importance of Being Ernest to transform the text into the exact class relations in Victorian society; many of Wilde’s events and details in The Importance of Being Ernest are realistic. And that is why Stephen Fry, in his essay Beauty of Soul, describes the man as being imaginative and able to “discover for us what we think and feel before we knew it ourselves.” He describes the critical characteristics of wealthy people and the poor through their actions without idealization. His candid description captures the actual state of affairs as the actual events in the society, but he depicts them with triviality that makes the whole movie feel humorous. Algernon and Jack wanted to live a double life to alter the truth and have fun in their lives. Here Wilde used trivialization of how Jack saw life as less important, living a double life. He wanted to live a socially acceptable life and at the same time seek personal gratification. In pursuit of all of these, miscommunication comes in when Jack claims to have an ill-mannered friend he calls Earnest, who he has to go and check on, when it is actualy himself, and he uses it as an excuse to escape home and live as he wants.

Again, Stephen Fry describes Wilde’s fictional writings as “triumphs of the imagination.” He describes him as being able to enter into another person’s mind and feel with them what they feel. And this is true because, in The Importance of Being Ernest, Wilde portrays Lady Bracknell’s examination of Jack’s economic wellbeing as a realistic element depicting how young women who have attained the age of marriage scrutinize male suitors to confirm their socioeconomic statuses. Here, Wilde uses objectification to show how she perceives men suitors as objects to make her shift from one social class to another. Lady Bracknell is a realistic depiction of society’s value for money above anything else; After all, a wealthy person was a subject of societal admiration. It was worse among the female gender who wanted wealthy suitors with social standing. The women wanted highly respected men in society. In the nineteenth-century England, it was common for women to assess a man’s social-economic muscles before marrying him. Many perceived marriages into wealthy suitors as a way to remain within the highly respected socioeconomic class.

Another way Fry describes Wild is as an artist who saw art in everything. He even crowns this description by saying that Wilde also saw Jesus and Satan as artists. And that is why Wilde’s choice of costume in The Importance of Being Ernest portrays the time and the social class of each character. The town is another element of realism that Wilde uses. A person’s residential place signified their social and economic status. Hence, Lady Bracknell examines Jack’s residence because she wants to ensure that it aligns with her tastes and preferences. She wants a high sense of class to gain a better social standing in society. Wilde proves that where one lived and their social class determined how they will be in other pursuits such as looking for a marriage partner. After all, for many, what mattered was social class more than anything.

Wilde’s story The Importance of Being Ernest coincides with what Fry says about him as a writer who “more or less identifies with the characters he has created.” And that is shown in the way this movie identifies with the whole society in which it was cast. He uses literary realism to depict the actual nineteenth-century British society.