The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

• Genre: Fiction; satirical play; comedy of manners
• Originally Published: 1895
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 1390L; grades 11-12; college/adult
• Structure/Length: Originally 4 acts; later condensed to 3 acts; approx. 76 pages; approx. 2 hours, 25 minutes on audio/running time
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Algernon and Jack are friends whose deceptions and fabrications lead to comedic complexities in their relationships. The tangled webs Jack and Algernon weave in pursuing love with ladies Gwendolen and Cecily reveal Victorian societal norms regarding family, status, and marriage.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Adoption and abandonment

Oscar Wilde, Author

• Bio: Born 1854; died 1900; studied at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, rising to the top of his class and earning a BA; Anglo-Irish playwright, poet, journalist, and leader in Aestheticism; married Constance Lloyd (1858); became a father of two sons (1885, 1886); later had an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, a British aristocrat; arrested and imprisoned under anti-gay laws when he attempted to sue Douglas’s father for defamation; granted a posthumous pardon under the passing of Turing’s Law; awarded the Newdigate Prize for poem “Ravenna” (1878); died in Paris of meningitis due to an ear infection; adaptations of The Importance of Being Earnest include three films as well as musicals and operas
• Other Works: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890); Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892); An Ideal Husband (1895); The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Social and Familial Obligations
• The British Aristocracy and Class Anxiety
• Wilde’s Personal Life

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Gain an understanding of the Victorian Era and the literary movements that characterized this period to analyze the historical and literary background in which Wilde was writing.
• Read paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Social and Familial Obligations, The British Aristocracy and Class Anxiety, and Wilde’s Personal Life
• Analyze and discuss the way in which Wilde uses satire and character to explore the central themes of his play.
• Examine and appraise the plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding marriage and social status, the alter ego of Earnest, and other topics.