The Importance of Being Earnest - Analysis

1- Explain the meaning of the tittle. Is it ironic or not? Why?

2- Summarize with your own words what the play is about (plot). Do not forget to mention setting in place and time!
3- Who are the characters? Are they round or flat? Choose two of the major characters and analize them in depth, taking into account their personality and why they are important for the story development.

4- Which is the central theme/s in the play? Justify your answer with examples from the story.

5- Are there any liguistic or concrete symbols that are connected with the theme or with any of the characters? Mention them and quote from where you find them.

6- Which is the most important comflict in the play? And what about the rising action and the climax?

7- Mention examples extracted from the story which are foreshadowing of future events.

8- In The Importance of Being Earnest, characters often use words such as bad and wicked and make pronouncements about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. Do true virtue or wickedness appear in the play?

9- Gwendolen’s father, Lord Bracknell, never appears in the play, yet Lady Bracknell mentions him often. What picture of his life and marriage do we get from the things she and Gwendolen say about him?

A play that turned to be a film!

10- A play differs from a novel or film in that it requires a performance by live actors pretending to be characters they are not before a live audience that allows itself to be fooled. What is gained by the fact that The Importance of Being Earnest was written as a play?

11- Follow the link and watch the trailer of the movie "The importance of being Earnest" (2002) After ehat... are the characters and the setting as you have imagined? Why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssBUir2LG-U

12- Now, chosse one of the following links that contain scenes of the movie and compare it with the part of the play that the scene is representing. Are the scene and the play so diffeent or not? Why?

Scene 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=horJHn-AQq8&feature=related

Scene 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMVQa6Xscrg&feature=related

Scene 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VHAQx4MAg&feature=related

Scene 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYGdk7uQ28&feature=related