Its a Farce!

This play is NOT a satire, it is a farce. Consider Wallace Bacon's analysis of satire and farce. Consider Highet's commentary... even the reviewers have realized it is not a satire- Wilde's play is only meant to poke fun at the aristocracy. Wallace Bacon says that a satire, “May cover a wide range of tones – angry, humorous, contemptuous, bantering, superior, hostile and so on; but it has at its center a critical purpose and a desire to castigate ridicule, or laugh at vices, foibles, manners, conventions, excesses” (552) to which Highet adds that "“As for satire, the satirist always asserts that he would be happy if he heard his victim had, in tears and self-abasement, permanently reformed; but he would in fact be rather better pleased if the fellow were pelted with garbage and ridden out of town on a rail” (155)... hardly descriptive of Wilde's play. Consider Highet's definition of satire- “Farce does not care what it does provided that everybody collapses into unreasoning merriment” (154). I just thought that this myth of The Importance of Being Earnest as a satire should be dispelled.

Well... in a farce characters, their characteristics, and events are exaggerated usually with the purpose of humour. Satires are basically making fun of certain subjects or people, etc. and when Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest it was with the purpose of making fun of those that he wrote about using the techniques of a farce to exaggerate their unfavorable characteristics and flaws. So, you can say in a way it is both a farce and a satire, but its main genre would be farce.

i have to write an assignment on how the I O B E is a satire on the follies and foibles of the upper class in england during Oscar Wildes time... the problem is that it is a farce (as you have said) so i have no idea how to attempt the answer ... any ideas? :bawling: :)