Importance_of_Being_Ernest_Literature_Notes

Lit Notes Phase one 1.) Jack Worthing~ Worthing was discovered as an infant by Mr. Thomas Cardew. He found him in a handbag in the cloakroom of a railway station in London. Jack grew up to be a seemingly responsible and respectable young man. He is a major landowner and Justice of the Peace in Hertfordshire. He also owns a country estate there. In Hertfordshire, where he is known by what he imagines to be his real name, Jack, he is a pillar of the community and is guardian to Mr. Cardew’s granddaughter, Cecily. Jack also has other duties and people who depend on him, including servants, tenants, farmers, and local clergyman. For years, jack has pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Ernest. In fact, he himself is the reprobate brother Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London. The fictional brother is Jack’s alibi, his excuse for disappearing from Hertfordshire and going off to London to escape his responsibilities and indulge in exactly the sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his mischevious brother. More than any other character in the play, Jack Worthing represents conventional Victorian values. Jack wants others to think he adheres to such notions as duty and honor, but he hypocritically mocks as earnest. What Wilde was actually satirizing through Jack was how general tolerance for hypocrisy was in a conventional Victorian morality. Jack uses his alter-ego Ernest to keep his honorable image intact. Ernest also enables Jack to escape the boundaries of his reality and act as he wouldn’t dare under his real identity. Ernest provides a convenient excuse and disguise for Jack. Jack wants to be seen as upright and moral, but he doesn’t care what lies he has to tell his loved ones in order for him to be able to misbehave as earnest. Even though Ernest has always been Jack’s unsavory alter ego, as the play progresses Jack aspires to become Ernest, in name if not by his behavior. That is until he seeks to marry Gwendolen. Jack has used Ernest as an escape from real life, but Gwendolen’s fixation on the name Ernest obligates Jack to embrace the deception of earnest in order to pursue the reality he desires. Eventually Jack's lie threatens to ruin everything. Algernon Moncrieff~ is the play’s secondary hero. A charming, elaborate bachelor, he's brilliant, witty & selfish, and given to making spontaneous and ingenious anouncements that either make no sense at all or are quite profound. Like Jack, Algernon has invented a fictional character, a chronicly sick man named Bunbury. He does this to give himself a reprieve from his daily life. Algernon is constantly being summoned to Bunbury’s deathbed, which conveniently draws him away from tedious or distasteful obligations. Like Jack’s fictional brother Ernest, Bunbury provides Algernon with a way of letting loose but also allows him to be serious and maintain his duty and honor. However, a salient difference exists between Jack and Algernon. jack does not confess to his alter-ego, while Algernon not only acknowledges his wrongdoings but also revels in it. Algernon’s delight in his own cleverness has to do with his personal philosophy, which puts a higher value on artistry and genius than on anything else. he also regards living as a kind of art form and life as a work of art. the kind that one creates themself. Algernon is a stand-in for Wilde himself. As are all Wilde’s dandified characters, including Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance. Unlike these other characters though, Algernon is completely amoral. Where Lord Illingworth is downright evil, and Lord Goring and Lord Darlington are deeply good, Algernon has no moral convictions at all. He recognizes no duty other than the responsibility to live life as beautifully as possible. Gwendolen Fairfax~ More than any other women in the play, Gwendolen conveys the qualities of conventional victorian womanhood. She attends lectures, has ideals, and is set on self-improvment. However she can be artifical and pretentious. She is in love with jack, aka earnest and is fixated on the name. This fixation plays as a metephore of the preocupation of the middle and upper-middle class's appearance of virtue and honor. She's so upcessed with the name that it blurrs her judement and she doesn't see that jack's fooling her. Gwendolen is strong-minded and has an heir of authority when speaking on taste and morality, like her mother. Cecily Cardew~ Cecily is the complete opposite of gwendolen. Where Gwendolen is a child of society, Cecily is a child of nature. She's innocent and unspoiled but is facinated with wickedness. However she too is ubsessed with the name ernest. Her wickedness is what leads her to fall in love with Algernon, poseing as uncle jack's brother, Ernest. just like the two men, cecily is a fantasist. She dreamed up her "romance" with ernest with much enthusiasm. Cecily is probably the most realistic character in the play. She's also the only on ein the play that doesn't soeak in epigrams. Part of her charm can be contributeed to her expansive imagination. 2.) In act one, Algernon has a guest come and visit him named Ernest, while he awaits the arrival of his aurnt Mrs. Bracknell and his cousin Gwendolen. Ernest has actually come to propse to Gwendolen. As the two men talk, Algernon forces the truth out about a cigerette case with an inscription from little cecily to unle jack. It is revealed that Ernest is actually Jack Worthing. He invented Ernest as a way to escape his responsibilties in the country. Algernon then reveals he does something similar. He has invented an invalid friend named bunbury. Whenever he diesn't want to attend something he will say that his friend needs hima nd he must go to him. The two men talk about ridding themselves of these alter-egos however, they see that subject very differently. Soon Algernonq's aunt and cousin arrive. They come in a nd sit a while and Algernon tells his aunt that he won't be able to make dinner due to his friend bunbury. She is irritated but Algernon conters that with going over an upcoming musical program while also giving gwendolen and jack the chance to be alone for jack to propose. When Algernon and his aunt leave, jack does so and she accepts. However jack is sad to learn that a large part of the reason she said yes is because his name is ernest. She is obsessed with the name. When Mrs. Bracknell and Algernon return they are told the news and Mrs. Bracknell interviews Jack and when she learns that he was an orphan she tells him that she forbids the maggiage. Gwendolen comes back in and tells jack of her unding love for him. Later jack tells algernon that he is going to kill Ernest off within the week due to a chill in paris. Gwendolen comes back in and jack and her talk and Algernon secretly listens in on the location of Jack's country estate. In Act two, Algernon shows up at jack's contry estate as Ernest Worthing and meets "little cecily". They flirt with eachother and they are immediatly taken with each other as well. Soon Jack arrives and tells everyone that Ernest is dead, then algernon comes in and shocks Jack. Jack wants Algernon to leave but he won't. Earlier that day, jack made plans with Dr. chauseable to be christend Ernest and later that day Algernon does the same. Both men oblivious that the other had done so. Gwendolen shows up unexpectedly and Cecily plays hostess, while gwedolen, having no idea who cecily is takes her to be a visitor as well. The two women talk and it is revealed that cecily is mr. worthings ward and gwendolen thinks that she's Ernest's ward, but cecily talls her that she is his brother jack's ward and is engaged to ernest. Gwendolen is caught off guard and tells her that she must be mistaken because she is engeged to Ernest. The two women get into a catfight and Jack and Algernon arrive and the who deception in revealed. The two women go angerly into the house and the two men squabble t each other in the garden. In act three, the two women wait in the drawing room for the two men ad are in a forgiving mood. The two men come in and they are about to be forgiven when the two girls remember that neither is named ernest. The two men then tell of their plans to be christend ernest that night. All is forgivin and then in comes dr. Chasuable and also mrs. Bracknell after bribing Gwendolen maid as to her wherabouts. Dr. Chauseable mentions Ms. Prism and Mrs. Bracknell recognises the name and wants them to summon her. Just then ms. prism walks in and it is reveald that ms. prism was a nannie for a baby that she misplaced twenty-eight years back. It is also reveald that jack was that child and that he was the child of her siter, making him Algernon's older brohter. They wonder about his name and it is found out that he was named after his father whose christened name was Ernest John. He realises he hasn't been lieing all these years and that his name really is ernest. Phase two 1.) This Play is a fable. It is an untrue story that carries a moral. The play is set, however, in a realistic world in victorian England. Wilde presents reality in physical terms. He uses things this was to show how people and society worked in victorian england and how people can be obsessed with an ideal, like a name, rather than an actual being. 2.)The main character, Jack, wants to be Ernest and marry his love, Gwendolen more than anything. He feels lke his life as jack is too serious and wants to lessen on his responsibilities as cecily's caretaker. The fact that he invents a make-belive brother named ernest to obtain these things, an obsticle is immediatly created keeping him from ever being able to combine both lives. This obsticle is overcome when his tru identity is revealed. 3.)The story is in the play format, therefore there is no particular point of view in the writing. This allows the readers to see into each character and not be biased by a specific persons inner thoughts about them. 4.)The Play is centered around two settings. The first being London, where Jack is Ernest Worthing and Algernon is his friend. Then There's jack Country estate in Hertfordshire where Jack is himself and Algernon poses as Ernest. These settings contrbute to the play by allowing either gentleman to be the mighty Ernest Worthing. Which is what the whole play is centered around. 5.) Wildes' style involves all but one character to talk in epigrams. It's also written in a very archaic diction which plays on the victorian setting of the play. Wilde also includes monolouges and write in a very satirical mannor. 6.) The double life is a central metephore in the play. It's also known as bunburying. As defined by Algernon, Bunburying is creating an elaborate deception, such as Ernest, that allows one to misbehave while seeming to uphold the very highest standards of duty and responsibility in their realities. Food is also central in the play. Wherever there is food, there is conflict. In Act one, there's the cucumber sandwichs and the conflict between Algernon and Jack. In Act two Cecily and Gwendelon are having tea and cake in the garden when the fact that they're both engaged to Ernest is reveald and the two enter into a catfight. Some motifs in the play include death and puns. Death frequently appears in the play.Lady Bracknell first comes on stage talking about death, The death of bunbury is also freqently tlaked about, and ms. prism speaks of death as though there is a lesson to be learnt from it. Puns are also frequent in th play. For example, Cecily and Gwendolen are obsessed with marrying a man named Ernest and they doen't care if the man actually posses those qualities. 7.) The Play begins with everyone being in disguise, but by the end of the play everyone is revealed and everyone knows the truth about everything. The play starts with all the obsticles that are present with jack being a made up person. But the play ends with Jack finding out that his real name actually is Ernest and everyone knowing the truth that he is Algernon's older brother. The ending of te play suggests that all the characters have mended their ways and will not continue making the mistakes that they made throughout the play.