Welcome to this video all about Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest from

1895 this video was focusing on giving you a summary of Act 2 and also finishing the
presentation by going through some of the key quotes from this act even though I'm aiming
this video at a level students for example those of you studying the aspects of comedy
course with AQA this video might be useful to anybody who wants to understand the
chronology of The Plot in Act 2 so the act begins we're now of course in countries so act one
took place in the city and algi's apartment in half Moon Street and at two and three takes
place at Jack's country Manor House in the country on the lawn of the Manor House we see
settling in this prison who are out having a lesson in the course Ms PRISM is setting this
governance which is a fancy term for saying that she is employed to look after the
educational but also I think to some extent the well-being just generally obsessingly and
making sure that she is having her lessons and that's what she's doing on the lawn as we
begin this act at that point Dr chassis and chargeable is the the rector or the priests or the
kind of the person that represents the religious elite in this play and he and Miss prism have
an interaction and it's made clear very quickly that this prism and Chas also quite like each
other and it's done through innuendo almost because chasmal awkwardly says things like if I
was to be if I was fortunate enough to be mischrism's pupil I would hang up on their lips and
then he covers himself and says actually I was speaking metaphorically because I was
speaking about beans which of course is complete nonsense so indirectly it tells us that
these two characters like each other now the question then is wives that have to be indirect
and it's because of the roles that they have because both chasma let me prism have quite
important roles in terms of where they are and they're both supposed to be dedicating
themselves to others so chargable is supposed to be dedicated himself to his parishioners
and his followers of the church and the congregation whereas miss PRISM is supposed to
be dedicating herself towards ceiling and her education and her welfare and to do otherwise
would have been seen as in proper and going against the sacrificial nature that they're
supposed to have their roles and of course both religion and education important in terms of
morality both education and religion was supposed to be taken quite seriously because there
to do a teaching people morality and help to behave and if it turned out that these two
characters who are supposed to be quite serious we're doing everything in their power to
reject those roles and to basically be with each other in some kind of romantic ideaism it
would not look good I would not be buffetting of their roles that Society is saying that they
should have so that's why it has to be indirect but going for a walk is a very good way of
spending time together and because it means that they get to have that togetherness and
that unity with each other while shielding behind something a lot of Victorians did which is to
go for a country walk Victorians of course believed that clean air had very clear medicinal
purposes so that's why people say to take the air meaning it's a good thing to go for a walk
so arguably I always H students that by going for this walk miss prism and doing their own
form of bunburying because they are scaping from their obligations in terms of staging of
course it's important that miss prism and chast are offstage going for walk because in their
absence this chat turns up who apparently is called Earnest but of course we know it's
actually algae and disguise because at the end of the previous act at one he has written
down the address of the Manor House on this shirt cuff and he's taking the train up to do
Bunbury so algae at this point because he is pretending to be somebody else is in the
process of Bunbury and we've already understood the theory of that from the conversation
that he had with Jack at the beginning of the play which was prompted by the cigarettes it's
in that conversation with sesame who is convinced that this is brother earners or Jack's
brother Earnest that miss is also wicket and wickedness That's Ernest is also wicked and
wickedness is appealing to Cecily because it means that there to be wicked is going against
what everybody else was supposed to be like which was serious so it's quite tempting for her
to be in contact with somebody who is quite wicked a really good app to refer to in terms of
disguise and trickery because as algae the brackets earliest goes off to have something to
eat on the porch of the house jacket piece they just appear he appears in morning clothes
because we're supposed to believe that his brother Earnest has died of a severe chill in
Paris of course brother Ernest never even existed the audience knows that but certainly miss
prism charitable do not and therefore what Jack is trying to do is he's masquerading as
some of the morning when actually there's that there's nobody there two more in the first
place so it becomes a hollow display of seriousness and mourning and Victorians took
morning very seriously they took death very seriously they often followed the leader of
Victorian the monarch Queen Victoria who was wearing black for years after death of her
husband Albert so she often set the standard and I think it was kind of partners were
obligated to mourn for two years to at least give the impression that they are being serious
and mourning of course that is undermined here by Wild because the character is mourning
for nobody would actually existed so it becomes a hollow and superficial display of
seriousness as soon as he's got the rather gullible miss prism and chasseible to believe that
brother Ernest has died and of course that leads to gullibility which is important for comedy
because despite miss prism and charitable supposedly being quite intelligent people they're
actually have all pulled over their eyes very quickly it's revealed by Cecily that brother Ernest
is actually eating muffins on the terrace and of course by this point Jack is already said he's
died and now suddenly he's living and breathing and also eating on the courts and so Jack is
forced to comically Backtrack and actually say oh silly me I must have made in the state he's
not dead he's here all along and in a sign of forced reconciliation Jack and Ernest for algae
as We Know It are forced to reconcile and shape each other's hands to give the impression
at least of the gifts now forgiveness is important in terms of comedy because characters do
often forgive themselves or each other by the end but also links of course to this politeness
that you would expect from a comedy of manner's play like Hermits where Society had very
clear expectations about The Manners and social behaviors of its citizens particularly the
upper class elite of which these characters represent so the reason in part why Jack feels
need to reconcile is because it was part of that like whereas of course the comedy comes
from the fact that deep down we know that Jack is absolutely fewerous the problem in this
kind of restrictive Society is that he can't acknowledge it publicly it turns out that algae
brackets Earnest has decided to move in for a week a bit of a holiday and he has brought his
luggage with him and he moves into one of the bedrooms upstairs much to Jack's distaste
and irritation and it's during this prolonged stay at the house that algae goes to propose to
sesame and it's from that that sesame kind of confusingly says oh you silly thing we've
already been married for three engaged sorry three months it's Valentine's Day and of
course this is completely used to algae in brackets Earnest because he's had nothing of the
sort so again proves that ceiling is inventing in hodari these made up Fairy Tail like Imagine
the tib stories to satisfy the sound and as I have said in other videos about sesame the diary
is also a decade of set of this mode of escapes so again arguably you could say that Cecily
by writing an effect nonsensitive make belief is her way of imagine imaginatively Bunbury it's
her escape from this very dull boring Society Mirroring gwendolyn and again there's a
parallel here sesame also says that it has always been aspiration of hers to marry somebody
called ernest and again it reinforces the importance of the title The Importance of Being
earned so both women now want to marry a man that name of course little do they know at
this point at least that both of those men are lying about their names and again that gives
you another interpretation of the title a lot of boys record Earnest at this during this time
because of the connotations of respectability seriousness and being you know quite solemn
and kind of important and serious at that point Gwen's in arrives after new tea in a fantastic
scene of passive aggressive rivalry rivalry is another aspect of comedy and it's really
entertained and audience to watch how these two women are putting on the polite mask of
manners because Society says that they should but it quickly turns out that they're going to
passive aggressively insult each other because they both think that they're engaged the
same map so despite them both trying very very hard to give the impression of Mans and
liking each other we actually detest each other very very quickly they talk about Spades
sesamethinks City people are vulnerable 3D gwendon thinks country people are simple and
boring so then relative respective settings are used as this rivalry T and kq used as rivalry
Gwen's specifically set about what sugar she's giving sugar anyway so this cordialeat which
a lot of women of this illke would have undertaken quickly descends into this passive
aggressive chaos and of course it has to be you need the surface because of the society
importance placed on Manners and where The Mask of Man or tight which can be a very
restrictive thing because it means that you can't be honest and genuine at that point both
Jack and algae reappear and the women clarify their real names and to cut a long story
short here their real names are revealed and women go off inside the houses as a parent
basically calling each other's sister and feeling like they have been greatly wrong it's
interesting that earlier in the play algae says women only call each other sister after they've
called each other a lot of other things first and that's kind of exactly what happens and that
predictability of course makes these characters also seem quite superficial and shallow
because act ends with jacking out you being left swelling on lawn about the proper way to
eat muffins and of course we have to remember that for Jack here again has lost another
opportunity to be with his love interest which is when the moon and comedy is often all about
pursuit of love interest rather than the state of marriage it's south and for algae according to
doesn't care as much profoundly he's finding he's got a scoundrel little Road they both are
really and the audience like them but for Jack this business about eating muffins is very
trivial it trivializes that moment of potential seriousness where Jack's future Brendan is again
at JetBlue we still of course got the big question about how they're going to change their
names which is why they want to be christened because it was upon baptism that children
were often named of course doesn't seem to be much point now because the women know
who they actually are so the final potential loss of love interest for Jack at least it's trulies by
concerns about proper way to eat muffins so that's the chronology of Act 2 and this acts
used to be two acts but it was put together to form one act relatively soon after the play was
written so that's why it's slightly longer the only character that doesn't feature in that is Lady
and of course that's important because it means that these these two couples can pursue
each other Without Fear of being interrupted by domineering comic villain character whose
main aim is to kind of delay the sense of happiness and resolution so the video finishes here
with some key quotes I wouldn't expect students to copy the whole quote if it's a long quote
in their essays but I would expect them to pick up these quotes for a judiciously a very
selectively and this covers a range of things including disguise Reality about hypocrisy
because remember that these characters are being presented as hypocrites really in other
words setting the moral standard of society but doing everything in their power to try and
reject it at the same time and a second slide here on the right hand side there is knife
separated those three shapes is because that is a piece of dialogue which happens together
and it's jacking algae talking and I really like the way in which algae is such a crafty speaker
he's able to be quite witty and a good word that I use a lot of the time with ear Mr cerebral
meaning to do with the brain because a lot of this players about kind of witty intellectual
humor which might be different to other kinds of comedy and so this kind of work play that he
hasn't twisting things and manipulating things around is very entertaining for the audience to
witness and makes us actually like character quite a lot because of this scoundrel-like club
will rogue like presentation so hopefully those quotes are going to be very useful for you just
a quick point fry finish the video The Shape there on the on the top left I think these are
hexagons by the way but anyway the shape on the top left here this is no time for wearing
the shallow mask of manners of course really goes to the heart of what this play is it's a it's a
satire of this very manly very polite overly superficial Society which actually comes across is
not very genuinely tall so that can be quite a key quote for students not just act two but the
whole play if there were going to make a comment about if you comment about Manners and
the restrictive nature of this society so that is the chronology of Act 2 of Oscar Wilde's play
The Importance of Being Earnest hopefully that was useful thanks for watching and good
luck with your studs thank you