The Importance of Being Earnest: Homosexuality

In 1895, Oscar Wilde was on trial for gross indecency or homosexuality ("posing as sodomite") with other men and on May 25th, was imprisoned for two years while being held to hard labour. During this time, The Importance of Being Earnest along with An Ideal Husband, another one of Wilde's popular plays, were shut down in spite of their significant financial success.

The Importance of Being Earnest was written in a time when homosexuality was a guarded topic and seen as "wicked" or "immoral" behaviour. In the play, the main character, Jack Worthing, is known as Jack in the country and Ernest in the town and goes between the two. Meanwhile he is in love with young lady, Gwendolen, who will only marry a man named Ernest because she desires the quality of being earnest the most in her future husband. Being 'earnest' however, can also be a reference to homosexuality which adds another dimension to the play. Jack's alternative identity and secrets could be parallel to someone who is homosexual; wearing a disguise to appear 'normal' and hiding.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Hypocrisy

Throughout The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde plays on the hypocrisy created by society. On multiple occasions, characters behaved differently than expected under those circumstances.

For example, at the beginning of the play, Lane, Algernon's manservant, has stolen champagne from his master and Algernon called him out on it but after a short amount of time, lets it go. Instead of a punishment which the audience expected, Algernon changed the subject and said, "Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?" (pg. 6). Another example is when Lady Bracknell suddenly warms up to Cecily when she is told Cecily is rich. She states, "A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! [Cecily] seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities" (pg. 89). The lack of authenticity lies in the fact that being rich is not necessarily a "solid quality" that makes a person suitable for marriage. Later, Jack, who must approve of the marriage between Cecily and Algernon, points out that, "[He] does not approve at all of his moral character. [He] suspects him of being untruthful" (pg. 91) which is a more significant quality one should look for in a mate than wealth.

The moral values of the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest are cloudy and inconsistent thus causing a great amount of hypocrisy.

The Importance of Being Earnest: The Dandy

The Importance of Being Earnest was produced in 1895 by Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, poet and one of London's most popular playwrights in the 1890's. Wilde's plays are quite similar in format and type of characters. The most popular and consistent character in Wilde's plays is the dandy. This is a stand in for Wilde himself. The witty, overdressed, self styled philosopher appears trivial and shallow at first, but as the play progresses, he turns out to be a deeply moral character that is crucial to the play's resolution.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the dandy is Mr. Algernon Moncrieff. Algernon is a young bachelor brought up to be rich though he is always lacking money. He is the only deceptive character in The Importance of Being Earnest that has a honest relationship with their fiancee when the play concludes. The is the perfect dandy in the play making seemingly useless comments that are actually quite intelligent and worthy of reflection. For example, Jack, the protagonist states that "I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister" (pg. 30) when referring to his ward, Cecily and his fiancee, Gwendolen, neither of which know of his alternative identity. In response, Algernon says, "Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first." (pg. 30)When reading this, it appears to have no relevance to the plot however in typical dandy fashion, the comment has significance towards the end of the play. When Cecily and Gwendolen become aware that they supposedly engaged to be married to the same man. Both women call each other liars because it is the other one to be married. When the truth is finally revealed, Gwendolen turns to Cecily and says, "You will call me sister, will you not?" (pg. 77) The play reeks with this irony and deception which makes the Victorian melodrama or "sentimental" comedy a great read.

The Purpose of a Government

Throughout chapters 12, 13 and 14 of the Virtue of Selfishness, (Man's Rights, Collectivized "Rights" and The Nature of Government respectively), Rand discusses and elaborates on the principle of individuals' rights. She defines rights as,

• the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others
• the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context
• the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics (Rand 108)

She states that moral law in society is created with the purpose of upholding individual rights and uses the Democratic Party and their efforts to create an economic bill of rights (individuals are entitled to objects such as material wealth) as an example. Rand is strongly against this idea and responds by declaring all individuals have the freedom to pursue property and material wealth however no individual has the right to property or good health. In the following chapter Rand continues to discuss individual rights but focuses on the nature of rights and collectivized rights. She goes on to explain that societies do not have rights, only the individuals within the societies hold any rights and argues against the idea of collectivized rights (the rights belong to the group and not to the individuals). She says that in that situation, the rights belong to some people within the group but not all, that "rights belong to some men, but not to others-that some men have the 'right' to dispose of others in any manner that they please" (Rand 120) and therefore, some individuals are denied their fundamental freedoms.

With the background of individual rights in place and Rand's opinion, I read chapter 14 (The Nature of Government) and found it quite interesting. She states that individual rights can only be violated by the use of physical force. "It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgement." (Rand 126) Because of this, we need a government to construct a code of rules to define and judge crimes and create punishments and consequences for crimes that are committed. Something like this cannot be left up to personal discretion.

Throughout these chapters I felt Rand's bias towards the subject. I do not disagree with what she argues however the time in which she wrote this is extremely relevant to what she is saying. Rand was born in 1905 and died in 1982. She witness the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and its affects soon afterwards. Rand uses Germany as an example various times throughout The Virtue of Selfishness and states that Nazi Germany is an extreme example of how dictatorships do not promote individuals' rights and it only leads to destruction of their citizens and the society as a whole. "A nation ruled by brute force is not a nation, but a horde." (Rand 121) Since she lived through this time period, Ayn Rand was able to construct a persuasive and well formulated argument.

The 'White' Choice

"If there is no black and white, there can be no gray-since gray is merely a mixture of the two." (Rand 87)

Rand goes on to say that since there must. be black and white to create gray one must first identify what is white and what is black on the scale of morality. Once they know what is black and what is white the person will not do whatever the black action is on the scale because that is the bad or wrong decision and the only decision they will make is the white decision; "There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil." In reality however, how often does society reflect deeply on their moral decisions and the consequences of the actions have and even then, how often does society make the 'white choice' after considering those consequences? And on top of all of this, can we classify things into categories as rigid as black and white in the first place or is everything gray? I thought this was an interesting concept.

Doesn't life require compromise?

The book I am reading for my Independent Study is called the Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. It is an older and controversial book, originally published in 1964, that contains a collection of essays written by Rand and Nathaniel Branden, her professional associate.

"The next time you are tempted to ask: "Doesn't life require compromise?" translate that question into its actual meaning: "Doesn't life require the surrender of that which is true and good to that which is false and evil?" The answer is that that precisely is what life forbids-if one wishes to achieve anything but a stretch of tortured years spent in progressive self-destruction." (Rand 81)

Throughout the chapter, Rand attempts to convince the reader that there is no such thing as compromise because it involves the sacrifice of one's beliefs and a rational person would not do this. I disagree. I believe the idea of compromise is not to give up your ideals entirely, but adjust them according to what the other person believes. It is not the difference between good and evil. Good and evil is implying that one idea triumphs the other and that in turn reflects bias. I agree that by compromising good for evil the result will be partly evil, but it will also contain the same magnitude of good (assuming the compromise occurs halfway). Your beliefs are still taken into account, they are not disregarded when a compromise is made and the decision is not as self-destructive and conformitive as Rand states.

Our Corrupted Minds

"You notice that popular literature, the kind of stories that are read for relaxation, is always very highly conventionalized." (pg. 21)

What Frye says in this quote is true; popular literature does follow a similar pattern for storyline and varies between the genres. No one has a clear view. Ever since we have entered into the world we have been influenced by religion and our parent's views. As we grew older it became society's views, our friend's views, celebrities actions. Now it is becoming our own opinions about what is around us and our inner conscious. To create a new form of literature we would have to have a naive and natural view of our world. Our current literature "provide[s] only content; they don't provide new literary forms." (pg. 22) because of the past experiences of their authors which have shaped their understanding of anything and everything. I also agree with the fact that "[The] story of loss and regaining of identity is the framework of all literature." (pg. 30)

The Gift of Imagination

“[Imagination is] the power of constructing possible models of human experience.” (p.8)



Why do children have imaginary friends? Because childhood is a stage of preparation and exploring. By having imaginary friends children can experiment with different personalities, how to solve problems and live a different way. I believe that Frye means that these "models of human experience" stimulate creativity and as a result, curiosity, like imaginary friends do for young children. Imagination, creativity and curiosity is starting point for innovation, for opinions or values, for change. This day and age in society, the possibility of imagination is under-minded and somewhat discouraged. Children with imaginary friends might be deemed weird or that their development is hindered because their creativity is beyond the concrete world. We as a whole could grow from the power of imagination and the possibility curiosity can bring.