To what extent do you think The Importance of Being Earnest is only a comedy of manners? Essay examples

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The importance of Being Earnest is a comedy of manners, as it explores codes of upper and middle class society. For example,"I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression.". However, The Importance of Being Earnest has other types of comedy, such as, comedy of humours and farce. Comedy of humours focuses on a character of range of characters, who have an over riding trait or humour that dominates their personality. For example, Algernon’s greed. Farce is a dramatic comedy that creates humour through a series of ludicrous events taking place in rapid succession. For example, Cecily andGwendolyn fighting over the same man who doesn’t exist, followed by a baptism that isn’t needed.

One way in …show more content…
Therefore, comedy of humours plays a big part in socialising the play, which helps the audience to realise the main traits or humours of the characters in the play.

Another way in which The Importance of Being Earnest is only a comedy of manners is through mistaken identity. This plays a massive role in the play as order is restored in the end by mistaken identy, which leads everyone to discover the importance of being Earnest. Mistaken identity is first introduced by Jack Worthing as he states “my names is Earnest in town and Jack in the Country”, the importance of having two identities in the play is so that it causes confussion. Furthermore, Jack uses these two identities to amuse oneself in the town and “in the country one amuses other people”. This means that he can please himself with one identity and please others, meaning Gwendolyn, as she adores her Earnest, in another. It is important to have two identites as you gain a wider social class and gain more connections, as Wilde explores how it is important to have many social connections. As having connections also helps to resolve the disorder. Additionally, Algernon also has another identity called Bunbury, which he overuses the term alot. When
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