Leila's Blog

The Importance of Being Earnest, written by Oscar Wilde is an interesting play that pictures and criticizes the values of Victorian upper class families in a humoristic and ironic way. Wilde plays with gender roles, mannerism and epigrams.
Lady Brackenell is the character that represents all de values of the upper class, which are superficiality, triviality, appearance, marriage for interest, education, etc., and the quote below in act III, shows what is actually important, in her words:

[…] Algenor is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?

Cecily and Gwendolen are two funny characters that are used by Wilde to break gender roles and to give grace in the Farce. Living in a society where people wait from two young girls to be “pure”, “sweet”, and “refined” even to hear the truth, as Jack says to Algenor in act I:

My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!

Gwendolen since the first act shows that she is not naïve, as it was supposed so at the time, in her words to Earnest:

Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

Likewise, Cecily shows her ideas in an open mind as we can see in the next excerpt when she says what kind of men she would like to “catch” in act II:

Oh, I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

However, since the beginning of the play in act I, Gwendolen broke the rules by deciding to merry Earnest without waiting for her parents to arrange it for her, as expected from girls at that time, and even when Lady Bracknell points out that she is not allowed to merry Earnest, in act I:

Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, […] will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be.

Gwendolen do not obey her mother and goes to Manor House to meet Earnest, without telling her.
Similarly, Cecily decides to marry Earnest (Algenor) for herself, and even says to him that it is wrote in her (imaginary) diary, in act III, when he proposes to her as we can see in their dialog:

Algenor: […] I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
Cecily: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
Algenor: But how did we become engaged?

Definitely the two women (girls) in the play are far ahead of their time and in my opinion they are even more “clever” than Jack and Algy, because they are in a way, kind of “Bunburies” as they are, without having to create other names or even other address.
I have to say that I liked very much the “end” of the play and what its title reveals, which can be more ironic than I have thought in the beginning.

Discuss the symbol “blue roses” used by Jim as a nickname for Laura. How does it show some of her specific characteristics?

Blue roses, the nickname for Laura, used by Jim in the play, shows how Laura is “rare” like blue roses, meaning that she is as fragile as a rose and at the same
time she is “strong”, because she has reason to be bitter and full of hate as a human being that is cripple, that was abandoned by her father and suffers emotionally, but on the contrary, she shows compassion for her brother and his condition and tries to help him by hiding his misbehavior from their mother. In addition, she is kind with her mother too, who in a way competes with Laura when she talks incessantly about her youth and how beautiful she was and how many “gentlemen callers” she had, without considering Laura’s conditions. It is rare for the human being, having so many reasons to be bitter and instead, be as sweet and generous as she is. That is why I believe she has that nickname in the play, She’s beautiful, strong and rare in the author’s eyes.

Is Lady Macbeth as guilty as Macbeth in the murder of the King? Comment and explain your answer.