Maxims and Masks: The Epigram in The Importance of Being Earnest Essay

Maxims and Masks The Epigram in The sizeableness of Being importunate Oscar Wilde frames The Importance of Being Earnest around the paradoxical epigram, a skewering metaphor for the plays of import theme of division of truth and identity that hints at a transsexual(prenominal) subtext. Other targets of Wildes absurd yet grounded wit are the social conventions of his stick-in-the-mud(p) Victorian society, which are exposed as a shallow clothe of manners (1655). Aided by clever wordplay, frantic misunderstanding, and dissonance of fellowship between the characters and the audience, devices that are now staples of contemporary theater and situation comedy, Earnest suggests that, especially in civilized society, we all lead double lives that contract upon us a variety of postures, an idea with which the closeted (until his public charge for sodomy) queer Wilde was understandably obsessed. The plays initial thrust is in its exploration of bisexual identities. Algernons and Ja cks Bunburys initially function as separate geographic personas for the city and country, dewy-eyed escapes from shrewish social obligations. However, the homoerotic connotations of the punning name (even the double bus, which serve by and large an alliterative purpose, insinuate a union of similarities, and Bunbury rhymes with buggery, British slang for sodomy) combust up when paired with Algernons repeated assaults on marriage ALGERNON. ...She will bulge out me next to Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her guard husband across the dinner party table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent ... and that sort of liaison is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It i... ... he was inextricably associated but from which he could meet as easily distance himself via a pithy saying, but he treats the tension of homosexuality, his own mask, more seriously. Jack is n ever ready to admit his entrance into the Bunbury underworld, and we never learn from Algernon the necessary rules of conduct. The personification of homosexuality as a characters double is not surprising - some critics argue that Dr. Jekyls grievous counterpart, Mr. Hyde, has some homosexual leanings - as such a controversial and, perhaps, viscous topic can be more easily disguised and obscured in the murky depths of the doppelganger tale. Today, with scientific evidence backing an opinion that places individuals sexual preferences on a sliding scale from full heterosexuality to full homosexuality, the simple bifurcated view of sexuality in literature may briefly be obsolete.