'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde - A Review

It's nonsense really.

Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre - play, satire, comedy

Themes - society, class, identity, romance, responsibility

Similar Books - 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' - Oscar Wilde, 'Noah Can't Even' - Simon James Green,

Apologies for the two week hiatus but rejoice for I am back with a fun, silly play by Oscar Wilde: 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. The play follows two men, Jack and Algernon, as they adopt fictional characters, Earnest and Bunbury, to escape the responsibilities of society and family. Jack creates a mischievous brother called Earnest in town, using him have a little fun. He soon falls in love with Gwendolen, Algernon's cousin, and wishes to marry her. However, when Algernon finds out about Jack's deception and his ward Cecily back in the countryside, he adopts the persona of Jack's fictional brother Earnest in order to pursue her. Now both men must become the characters they adopted in order to marry the women they love, entailing with chaotic confusion of mistaken identities and the subversion of expectations, where the trivial is treated as serious and the serious treated as trivial. 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is a cleverly constructed comedy, designed to criticise the shallow values of contemporary society.

This play is a jarring contrast to any other play I have studied at school or read at home. Instead of an incredibly tense and didactic play criticising the ills and woes of society, I was given a fun comedy that invites a good chuckle. Wilde expertly crafts comedy by contradicting the usual societal conventions and manners, creating an absurd play of superficiality. As a reader you begin to expect these contradictions, yet Wilde is able to cleverly keep the reader/audience hooked through the absurdity and nonsense of the banter shared between characters. He keeps the drama growing by adding even more complexities and crises to be explored and there is never a dull moment. The characters have incredibly distinct identities, Algernon being the flamboyant, extravagant character quoting various observations on society, Jack the slightly more mature one, but a lost orphan with a past even he doesn't understand. Yet despite their difference, both are united in the aim to win the hearts of their lovers, Gwendolen and Cecily, regardless of the drastic actions they must take.

I compare 'The Importance of Being Earnest' to a modern book, 'Noah Can't Even' by Simon James Green, mainly because they both have absurd and nonsensical plot lines. In 'Noah Can't Even', the plot twists generally become more even more extreme as the novel progresses, mirroring the absurdity of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.

Overall, for its humour and clever construction, 'The Importance of Being Earnest' earns all five stars. If reading the play was so entertaining, the performance must be incredible.

PS: Do you prefer classics or modern novels?