English literature IV

The play The importance of being Earnest by the Irish Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) is an interesting point of view of the Victorian society of his time. The play is a farce which there is not many actions but it is a play that exists through its language. The importance of being Earnest: A trivial comedy for serious people is satirical and witty from the beginning until the end. The title as the very beginning of the play is a joke with the name Earnest that is a proper name and it is an adjective which means sincere. Oscar Wilde presents us through jokes about rules of society in this play some themes such as the triviality of society, art for art’s sake, marriage and the double life.

During the play Oscar Wilde display two interesting characters: Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. Both look for a proper husband. Therefore, Oscar Wilde through jokes about rules of society shows these two ladies manipulating the two dandies they are fond of: John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff.

Gwendolyn is interested in John Worthing who is a dandy which uses the name of Ernest in London where he meets her. On one hand Gwendolen loves the name Ernest, intends to marry with Earnest (John Worthing) but she does not like the name John or Jack. On the other hand Cecily is interested in Algernon, intends to marry with Ernest (Algernon), a dandy friend of John Worting who uses the name of Ernest to court John’s ward, Cecily who lives in the country but she does not like the name Algernon or Algy.

Another important character in the play is Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen’s mother who does not approve the marriage of her daughter with Ernest (John) because he is an orphan. Algy reinforce it by saying he will not approve the marriage because John Worthing does not approve Algy’s marriage with Cecily.

In this confusing setting of Oscar Wilde’s farce Gwendolen and Cecily break some gender rules. Cecily in order to get married with Algy manipulates him through a diary and by their engagement. On page 81 Cecily and Algy talk:

Cecily: I thin your frankness does you great credit, Earnest. If you allow me I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to table and begins writing in a diary].

Algernon: Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?

Cecily: Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication […] I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached absolute perfection. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.

Algernon: [Somewhat taken aback]: Ahem! Ahem!

Cecily: Oh, don’t cough, Ernst. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don’t know how to spell a cough. [Writes as Algernon speaks.]

Algernon: [Speaking very rapidly.]: Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly.

And few moments later Algernon proposes to Cecily.

Algernon: Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for any body in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?

Cecily: You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.

[…]

Algernon: Darling! An when was the engagement actually settled?

Cecily: On the 14th of February…

Through this dialogue we can see Cecily manipulating Algy to marry him, consequently he is doing what she wants, a marriage with Ernest. Cecily also decides to marry Ernest (Algy) without the permission of her ward, John Worthing.

Gwendolen as well as Cecily decides to marry John Worthing without her mother’s permission as we can observe on page 88, Act III.

Lady Bracknell: Gwendolen! What does this mean?

Gwendolen: Merely that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Worthin, mamma.

Then, Lady Bracknell starts an interview with John in order to see if he is going to be a good husband to her daughter. It is important to notice that Gwendolen and Cecily manipulate John and Algernon to change their names to Ernest and both agree with that as we can see on the third act on page 87.

Gwendolen and Cecily [Speaking together.]: Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier. That is all.

Jack and Algernon [Speaking together]: Our Christian names! Is that all? But we are going to be christened this afternoon.

Gwendolen [to Jack]: For my sake you are prepare to do this terrible thing?

Jack: I am.

Cecily [to Algernon]: To please me you are ready to face this fearful ordeal?

Algernon: I am!

Therefore, throughout these samples and how Gwendolen and Cecily behave in this play we can see that both break gender roles. Despite John and Algernon intended to court the girls to marry them, they are Cecily and Gwendolen who manipulates the situation and even their Christian names in order to marry an ideal of a man they had in mind called Ernest.

Source: WILDE, O. The importance of Being Earnest. In_____ Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.

The acclaimed play The Glass Menagerie by Tenessee Williams is an interesting story from the time of the big New York stock exchange crash. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the United States was growing in a large scale its economy but around 1929 the growth of the industrial production did not follow the salaries, the mechanization of work unemployed many people and the recovery of the European economies after the First Great War reduced the amount of exportation from the USA to Europe.
The play is a sample of how Americans were dealing with the problem and Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield are the characters who show us these problems. The Wingfield family lives the harsh reality of USA of the 30’s. All of them look for an escape of this reality. Tom is Amandas’s son. His escape is in the movies and alcoholic drinks. Amanda is stuck in her pas when she was a Maid of the big farmers in the South. Laura is Amanda’s daughter. She cannot handle stressful situations and she feels guilty for not doing what her mother wants. So, she finds her escape in a glass collection of animals which her mother calls a glass menagerie. This collection is a symbol of fragility, beauty, coldness and it is something that does not change.
Looking closer to these characteristics we can find them also in a nickname which her inherited from Jim O’Connor, a guy she liked from the high school time who is going to supper in her house. Jim called her Blue Roses and almost at the end of scene 2 Laura explains to her mother:

Laura: When I had that attack of pleurosis – he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis – he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that. Whenever he saw me, he’d holler, “Hello, Blue Roses!”… (p.286)

Therefore, this nickname represents many things in the play, mainly to Laura. If we remind the characteristics of her glass menagerie, the fragility, coldness, beauty and something which does not change we can make an approximation of these characteristics to the Blue Roses. In some Western cultures the blue represents a cold color and beauty. This color does not fit to a real rose. There is no record of such a thing. Roses represents beauty and fragility.
We can see that the symbols in the play are important to the understanding of the play and if we focus on Laura’s nickname, Blue Roses, we can understand much of her. As a Blue Rose, Laura is fragile, beautiful, she does not change and just as a blue rose and an unicorn (her favorite glass animal of the collection) are something that reality does not bear, Laura is someone who does not fit in the reality she lives.

Source: WILLIAMS, T. The Glass Menagerie. In: The American Experience: Drama. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1974.

Lady Macbeth is a very important character in Shakeaspeare’s Macbeth. Since she reads a letter from Macbeth saying the witches’ predictions that he’s going to be a king, she starts wondering about the issue. In act 1, scene 5, the messenger says that the king is going to sleep in Macbeth’s castle and this sparks in her mind many thoughts about Duncan’s replacement by Macbeth as the king of Scotland. Lady Macbeth wants her husband becomes a king and for that, she thinks in a murderer but not in its consequences. In act 1, scene 5 she says:

“The raven himself is hoarse
that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop the access and passage to remorse…
You will wait on nature’s mischief! Come thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell… (lines 38-51)

From these words we can lady Macbeth trying to treat her wish for the crown as a normal thing just invoking the night and the evil inside her. She shows by her words that she’s not aware of the consequences of a murderer, of killing someone. She even says: “Stop the access and passage to remorse”. She does not want to think about consequences nor in her bad and dark desires.
From this point further, Lady Macbeth is going to plann everything and she is in part responsible to spark and increase the evil side of Macbeth. Up to act 1, scene 5, Macbeth is in doubt of doing the assassination, he says to Lady Macbeth: “if we should fail” (line, 23). She replies: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.” (lines 24-26). These words show how Lady Macbeth encourages her husband towards doing the crime. Then in act 2, scene 2, the Lady tries to clear of Macbeth’s mind his remorse and his fear about his deed. After saying to the Lady how terrible is the sight of the dead people he killed, she says: “A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.” (line 21-22). In the same scene Macbeth shows again his fears and remorse by saying: “Macbeth shall sleep no more!” (line 42). The Lady replies:

“Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainstickly of things. Go, get some water
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. –
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They mus lie there: go, carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.” (lines 43-49)

Up to this point Lady Macbeth is aware of all actions she and Macbeth have done. Despite she has not commited the assassination, the Lady encourages her husband, helps him to plan the killing and tries to not feel remorse as a consequence of her actions. Sometimes, during the play we feel that Macbeth does not feel nothing and Lady Macbeth desires madly the power of the crown and then she tries to convince and propel her husband towards the assassination. Macbeth used his hands to kill but this assassination was planned since the beginning by the Thane of Glamis – Cowdor and the Lady. She could avoid planning and also could advise Macbeth to stop thinking about murdering and let things happen by natural causes, however, she did the right opposite and it makes as guilty as Macbeth in the murderer of the King Duncan.

Source:
SHAKESPEARE, William. The complete works of William Shakespeare. Scotland: Geddes e Grosset, 2002.