About This Lesson
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, is a comedy about social class, gender roles, mistaken identities, love and marriage, and identity. The play focuses on the lives of two wealthy gentlemen who create double lives for themselves to avoid certain social obligations. Wilde’s play encourages audiences to think about a wide range of issues, particularly ideas surrounding wealth and privilege, duty and obligation, respectability, and personal identity. By poking fun at Victorian society, Wilde exposes its weaknesses.
Students will read an abridged version of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin, Ireland and became one of the most successful playwrights of the Victorian era. His work is known for its wit and humorous wordplay, as well as its satirical comments on upper-class Victorian life.
Students will not only enjoy the play’s clever humor and wordplay, but they will also critically consider how the rules of society create—and constrain—one’s sense of self. They will explore and analyze The Importance of Being Earnest as an example of dramatic writing, examining the text’s use of characterization, themes, and wit.
In this unit, students will write and publish a short play, work on grammar skills involving voice and mood, and study the Greek and Latin roots salis, sophos, sonus, and caput.
