The Unrealistic Earnest

I thought the play The Importance of Being was kind of silly and outrages. The situations in the story would not happen in real life. The coincidental situations such as Jack and Algy being brothers and Jack’s real name being Ernest were just a little too much to take the story seriously. I was also confused by how easily the whole situation was resolved in the end; how easily everyone was forgiven and how “happily ever after” it appeared to be. I think for a story to be truly intriguing to me there needs to be a basis of reality so that I can actually relate to the story as if it could be a real life situation.

One thing I did find interesting about the story was the issue of gender equality or inequality that was highly prevalent in the story. On multiple occasions they discussed whether the sexes have equal status within society. Often it appeared that the women expressed that they felt the genders where unequal more so then the men. For example, one thing that was disheartening was when Gwendolen said “How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us” and Cecily responded “They have moments of physical courage of which we women know absolutely nothing (pg. 61)”. In another scene Jack states “Why should there be one law for men and another law for women (pg. 69)?” However, I think it was pretty clear throughout the story that both genders felt the sexes were unequal, as was standard at that time. I believe some comments were made, such as Jack’s, that only superficially denied that inequality.

I am watching the movie tonight and am anxious to see how the different themes play out within the film as opposed to the play. I would like to see it be slightly more realistic and am interested to see how the gender relations are portrayed as well.