Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest Take Home Test

1. In the farce The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde, improbable coincidences pile up and become an important factor in developing the plot until the end. A very important improbable coincidence that helps the story continue is that Miss Prism, the governess at Mr. Worthing’s house, is actually the person who stole Mr. Worthing twenty eight years ago. In the play, Lady Bracknell identifies Miss Prism as the one who “left Lord Bracknell’s house … in charge of a perambulator that contained a baby, of the male sex” (Wilde 51). This coincidence is highly important as Miss Prism discloses her information revealing that Mr. Worthing is in fact Algernon’s brother and Gwendolen’s cousin. Another improbable coincidence that helps conclude the plot of Mr. Worthing’s true identity is that his name is in fact Earnest. After the whole truth is revealed of Jack’s origins, he looks through records to find his father’s Christian name which is in fact “Earnest after all” ( Wilde 54). This coincidence helps conclude the play as it guarantees Jack’s marriage with Gwendolen and reveals the fact that Jack has been telling the truth all along.
2. In the farce The Importance of Being Earnest written by Oscar Wilde, the author utilizes shallow and egotistic characters in order to display caricatures of real people. In this play, Algernon Moncrieff is an idle character who merely lounges around and in turn is very shallow to the people around him. In the opening act of the play, Algernon displays his self-absorbed attitude as he cares little of his servant’s personal life and concludes that the lower class has “no sense of moral responsibility” (Wilde 2). The attitude of Algernon is reflective of the shallowness of people and the general misconception of the moral instability of the lower class. Another example of a shallow and self-absorbed character is Aunt Augusta. Aunt Augusta, also known as Lady Bracknell, strongly...