The aesthetic movement
(1860-1900)
- importance in representation
- importance in beauty
- one lives because of beauty
aestheticism was a cult
- motto: art for arts sake
- movement believed that art shouldn’t just seek to have an education message, it was to give
sensual pleasure
- influenced heavily by oriental design
Oscar Wilde
- part of the movement
- had the facade as a father and husband, and a private life (put on trial for homosexuality)
- died of poverty, trial ruined the rest of his life
The importance of being earnest
- a social commentary
- a lot of double entendres
- aiming critique at the upper classes and the victorian social ideology
- e.g. a woman is only worth something if she’s married
- title conveys that its important to be truthful and upfront
- culturally in this time period things were taking place
- women are now going out to work
- end of the 1800s because of the war, women outnumbered men in england
- a lot of spinsters
- scientific knowledge
- trying to break down our understanding of how things are categorized in boxes
March 27
- class discussions
- Lady Bracknall is a satirical character
- food sex metaphor
- marriages are made in hell
- cliches
- irony, nothing earnest about the characters or the play
- whole understanding of earnest, nothing earnest in the play
- no one is who they appear
- excess, Gwendolyn, earnest beyond belief
- idea of fiction and writing
- discussion around education taking place
- making a vast social commentary on the hypocrisy of keeping up appearances
- if the upper classes are supposed to set the example for the lower classes
- algae is setting an immoral example for his staff
- lies continuously - age of Freud (discussions of repression, everyone is sexually repressed)
- get through sexual repression through eating in excess
- sexual tension with Jack and Gwendolyn
- constant referral to sex
- Lane covers for Algae
- servants are as deviant asAlgae
- marriage is being equated with hell
- discussion about married life
- no sense of moral responsibilities
- Algae is turning the tables
- saying he should be learning from lower classes
- supposed to be upper classes setting the example
Jack Worthing
- represents upper classes
- attitudes of victorian rituals
- wants to get married, unlikeAlgae
- wants to be responsible
- Is he worth his name in gold? is he worth the name earnest?
- Algae represents scum
- something which is stagnant
- stagnantation taking place in the upper classes
- holding on too tight to the class system
- near the end of the act there is a discussion on fools (p. 1034)
- are they talking about anything or reduced to nonsense themselves
- highlighting that both of these two men are fools
- perceive themselves to be clever
- cigarette case: introduces Cecily
- fictional representation going on
- the opening of a book
- first introducing us to earnest who is now jack, has to tellAlgae a story to fictionalize his life
- Cecily important because
Is jack as earnest as he wants to pretend he is?
- conforms to social ideology
- feels as though he can conform, has morals, not as bad as Algae
1026-1027
- jacks not good at lying and making up stories
- drawing our attention by mocking himself and others, literary critics
- mocking his own profession
- moved into the age of education - newspapers are rampant
- now have more people reading the daily news
- age of popular culture
- women and men at this time have a culture around self-help guides
- people are turning to these magazines to learn how to present themselves
- people are learning from culture magazines
- Gwendolyn is now engaged to Jack
- Gwendolyn asks Jack, but for appearances Jack asks
- foolishness, class structure, appearances, doubling, food is going to be a big role throughout
- the heart of the text is education
April 1
- importance of appearance
Act 2
- Fiction
- appearance of fiction in act
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