The importance of being

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

download word file, 1 pages 0.0

Downloaded 7 times

I chose the play The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde to read and respond to for Theatre Appreciation class. I chose this particular piece for a few reasons, one being that I am familiar with the piece and two being that I see how this piece relates to today's society.

The theme of the play seems very cut and dry to me but it may not be to others. All of the male characters in the play have this need to be something they are not. This need is the driving force behind all of their actions. They feel the need to be someone other than themselves to impress the woman of their dreams. This is so true in today's society. Every one has this in them. We all yearn to be something we are not and we create in our own minds these self-images that are purely fantasy.

People lie about who they are and where they came from. They make themselves into people they are not.

It is truly one our societies ills and it appears to have been a problem in history as well in the eyes of Oscar Wilde.

Another theme of the play is that people narrow their choices and trap them into a restricted mind set. The main female character of the work does this. She sets it in her mind that she will only love a man named Ernest. This mindset causes the men to lie and deceit the poor girl because he has fallen in love with her. She finds out in the end that his name is not Ernest and that she will love him after all but she would have not given him another look had he not lied.

This play has a lot of points that...