The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

By Kathi Mitchell

Repression and making your appearance line up with the requirements of a judgmental world made life tough no matter what your class was.

​What's really important?

​The Victorian World

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Multiple Choice

What philosophy immediately preceded Victorian thought?

• Puritan

• Rational

• Romantic

• Modern

Aristocrats and the middle class people (bourgeois) ​

​really wanted to be aristocratic were perfect subjects for comedy.

​Who are the obvious "wannabes" of our time?

​Oscar Wilde

Multiple Choice

Which was written by Wilde?

• Tale of Two Cities

• Arms and the Man

• The Selfish Giant

• The Taming of the Shrew

Multiple Choice

Which one of these did Wilde write?

• The Ideal Husband

• David Copperfield

• The Fox and the Hound

• Peace Like a River

​Were people better or worse off in Victorian times than in the other eras we've studied? Hiding your problems doesn't get them better. Romantics saw that there were lots of problems in their time too, but didn't hide them.

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Society is always a mess

Poll

Which era did you think had the worst problems?

• Beowulf's time

• Renaissance

• Civil War era

• Romantic era

Open Ended

Why?

​Wilde recognized that his world had a lot wrong with it, but he kept his sense of humor and his hope alive.

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​Should only perfect people try to make the world better?

​Taking on the hypocrites

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Multiple Choice

What's the story that features two friends who both pretend to have a different name in order to avoid the consequences of their foolish choices?

• An Ideal Husband

• The Selfish Giant

• The Canterville Ghost

• The Importance of Being Earnest

Multiple Choice

Which character did Oscar Wilde probably think represented the worst of society's faults?

• Jack

• Algernon

• Lady Bracknell

• Cecily