![]() ![]() ![]() The way many revered it is almost trivial. ![]() The Victorians saw earnestness as the overall sublime virtue that one must achieve in their life in order to gain the acceptance of the aristocratic society. This entire idea of needing to be earnest was at the very top of the Victorian’s code of conduct even though many people lead corrupt lives. Simply put, it is the serious and determined desire to do the right thing. ![]() In his work, Wilde exposes the scandalous social beliefs and ideals of the aristocratic society by derisively mocking their contemporary voguish ways.īy creating a laughing stock of the false views of having to live an earnest life, the fact that many actually live a double life, and the hypocritical stance of their societal mores, Wilde helps to bring to light the breakdown of Victorian values.īeing earnest or having earnestness can be most adequately defined as showing sincerity of feeling or being serious in intention, purpose, or effort. Wilde displays this natural wittiness in his well-known play “The Importance of Being Earnest” which is a hilariously satirized caricature of the Victorian age and the hypocritical values that the people of that time held. The “dazzling conversationalist”(Norton 1720) was once reported by Yeats whom said, “I never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all overnight with labor and yet all spontaneous”(Norton 1720). Oscar Wilde was an established writer of the late 1800’s who had a gift of being witty. ![]()
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