The Importance of Comedy

Comedy plays an important factor in the crucial criticisms of society’s flaws, and this role of comedy can be seen without difficulty in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Within this play Wilde uses various shenanigans and conventions of comedy in order to satirize and poke fun at a pretentious and imperfect world. 

One of the most satirized aspects of this era is the significance of one’s name and status in life. Both Jack and Algernon fall in love with women who have fundamentally flawed views on who a man should be. Of most consequences to these affluent women was the name Earnest. They believed not in the virtue of the man, but in the virtue of a man’s name. In this case the name Earnest is seen by these ladies as highly desirable, and showing the characteristics of someone whom they could truly and deeply love. But of course one of these men is named Jack and the other is Algernon, neither is Earnest. The comical aspect of this play revolves around the struggle that these men undergo in order to gain the love of their chosen woman, a struggle that drips with satirical judgement on the way these women go about life and view love. 

Wilde also pokes fun at the serious business of what makes a man suitable for Victorian society. In a scene with Lady Bracknell, the experienced and opinionated woman outlines her most important factors for the proper Victorian husband. Topping that list is ‘does he smoke’. Obviously this exemplifies the idea that the characteristics valued by this society were not the ones of most significance, the were mundane and incredibly trivial. Wilde uses this to his advantage several times and sheds light on a skewed and somewhat twisted group of people. 

By satirizing the values and beliefs of a society that he disagreed with, Wilde is able to comically impart his own judgement and views. Comedy can play a key part in social progress, as this play shows, by simply pointing out how ridiculous and utterly absurd many of society’s rules truly are.

Parallel Structure

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a prime example on the use of parallel character’s that add more depth to each other by acting in similar fashions or getting involved in similar situations. Likewise in the play The Importance of Being Earnest writer Oscar Wilde uses parallel characters who help add layers to each other and further develop the work as a whole. This two very dissimilar works are nonetheless connected by their very similar use of characters that mirror and mimic each other.

Although at first these two pieces of literature seem to have no correlation, one being a serious novel on a mad scientist and the other a twisted comedy about love and honesty, they use very similar devices to get their overall criticisms of human society across. Victor Frankenstein and Robert Walton draw connections between each other in their search for the unknown and undiscovered. Jack and Algernon are attached to each other by their “bunburying” antics and their constant struggles with the ridiculous rules and expectations of their society. In each case the one character goes through similar experiences with the other and helps the work as a whole to impart a greater meaning.

In Frankenstein Walton helps introduce and wrap up the themes of dangerous exploration and misuse of knowledge. He and Victor both are young and ambitious men in pursuit of a seemingly impossible goal that appears beyond the scope of the average man. In the end though each one ends their adventure in defeat. Victor’s leads to his death and his family’s destruction, his final moments are full of agony and regret for his carelessness. Likewise, Robert Walton is sailing into the Arctic depths in order to find some sort of prophesied utopia. However he drives his crew to the brink of mutiny and leads his men through a fruitless endeavor. In the end, both Victor and Walton parallel each other and drive home the main theme that some goals are not meant to be reached, that there are in fact limits to what man can achieve. 

The Importance of Being Earnest explores the idea that societal values don’t make logical sense through the two eventual brothers Algernon and Jack. Each gets wrapped into a similar situation of expectant love that is guided and shaped by lies and deceit. Algernon falls in love with his dearest Cecily, however their love is blocked by her longing to be with a man named Earnest. Just the same as Algernon, Jack too falls in love with a woman, named Gwendolen, who wishes only to be with a man named Earnest. The repetition of their situations helps to emphasize the idea that these two women are looking for love in all the wrong ways, a name is just a name and nothing more. However the fact that Algernon and Jack both have to work around the all important issue of their names shows that society values strength of character far less than it does the symbolism of one’s name. 

In each instance one character relates to another and works in cohesion to bring a greater point of meaning into the work. The parallels in these two pieces help show one of the many devices used in literary works to lead the reader to a better understanding of the work as a whole.

The Mask

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask! 

-Paul Laurence Dunbar

“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar explores the existence of the many people who survive every waking moment of life by hiding behind the facade of normalcy. It isn’t merely about the simple peer pressure to “fit in” but instead a deeper and more meaningful look at how too many of us hide our feelings and true self behind “the mask”. 

Inside the first stanza Dunbar introduces the symbol of the mask, a physical barrier between the face of the wearer and the world beyond. The mask is a farce, presenting an image to the world that is far from the truth. The notion that it “grins and lies” presents the idea that grinning itself is an act of deceit, that the user of the mask isn’t truly doing anything of the sort. Thus whoever wears the mask is showing not what they feel but what they wish the world to believe they feel. The second line presents another separation from the world, this time not emotionally but physically, as the mask-wear has their face hidden from sight. Referenced in the next line is the belief that wearing the mask is a tribute to the natural trickery of human society, the one who wears the mask is just paying homage to a long held tradition of dishonesty and imitation. Ending the stanza is a more emotional look into the life of the one who wears the mask, a person who has experienced loss and misery which has forced them to live behind the shroud of obscurity. The wearers are no strangers to despair, they live with it silently every day.

Dunbar offers a slightly different perspective of those who wear the mask within the second stanza. The first two lines of this stanza form a rhetorical question in which Dunbar asks if society should change it’s opinions of anyone who shows emotions and inner turmoil. By saying “counting”, Dunbar expresses his belief that people are constantly watching and take special care to notice any moment that a person forgets to disguise their true feelings. The question is answered in a way, by saying no and once again speaking of the mask. Instead of letting the world count “our tears and sighs” Dunbar suggests using the mask and only allowing anyone to see the powerful emotions or deep feelings that lay underneath the fake grin of the mask.

The third and last stanza of the poem looks straight into the heart of the matter, a truly emotional look into the workings of those who must fight to hide all of their feelings. The first line is nothing short of pure despair, emphasized by the plea to religion that sits within the line. This despair is further punctuated in the final stanza’s second line by describing their cries as emanating from the bodies’ of those who have suffered for far too long. The next two lines outline the trap that the mask wearers have found themselves in, unable to remove their barriers but stuck in an untenable situation. They are stuck in “clay” with no way out for miles; more or less they can find no escape from their current predicament. Finally the poem concludes, not with happiness or change, everything remains as it was when the poem begins. Dunbar expresses the need to deceive the world and wraps the poem up with a line that vaguely resembles a chant, “We wear the mask!”. Instead of the situation being resolved or becoming more bearable Dunbar merely urges the mask-wearers to stay resilient and continue to smile through their tears. It might seem an unfair world, but from the eyes behind the mask this is seems to be the best course, possibly the only course, of action.