The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is a social commentary on the Victorian era upper class. Oscar Wilde utilizes sattire, sarcasm, repetition, and aphorism to bring across the deeper meaning of the farce. Though the characters are not decribed in depth, they clearly bring across the meaning of the work anyway. In fact, in this farce, in is almost unneccesary to go into a detailed description of any of the characters because there really is not much more to them than is described. The possey of upper class characters we meet in The Importance of Being Earnest live to better their reputations, to look down upon anyone and everyone less wealthy, less dignified, less perfect. The constant proclamations of the proper way to behave are ridiculously unimportant and appallingly insignificant to anything actually important. The entire play is a collection of trivial conversations. On the whole, we see that the adjective "Earnest" cannot be used to decribe these characters. The adjective provides great irony to the play. The most relevant connotation of the word lies in the ladies' need, for no reason whatsoever, to marry a man named Earnest.

"Cecily: I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down I should probably forget all about them"

This quote from Cecily is laughable and childish. It is a summation of her character as described in the play, though admittedly none of the characters were described in great detail. It is absurd to use the logic that you might forget wonderful secrets of life lest you write them down. If you have to write them down, then they are probably useless. Cecily makes herself look foolish, as if she is not competent enought to remember the important moments in her life. The tone of the quote is light and airy, and simultaneously gives the impression of stupidity. It emphasizes the characters' concentration on superflous information, on meaningless nonsense that they consider to be of the upmost importance. We get the impression that Cecily, and indeed all of the characters here, don't quite have their priorities straight.

I really enjoyed this play. Oscar Wilde did an excellent job of satirizing the upper class in a comical way, though clearly bringing across his message. The dialouge was absolutely hilarious, and I have recommended this book to many people, suggesting, of course, that British accents be used at all times. The complex situations that occur with the switching of identities are something I have only ever imagined to take place in soap operas. Knowing that such a situation could occur in the Victorian era makes the story that much more unique. I have never read a farace before; it was interesting to realize that a deep meaning can be found even when the charcaters described very little. I truly enjoyed this play!

A Tale of Two Cities

Madame Defarge is a meticulous, plotting, veangeful woman. As she continues to knit through any conversation she overhears, it is clear that she is important,that she is planning something. In fact, Madame Defarge is knitting in her work the names of all the people to die for the revolutionary cause. She is a terrifying character, quiet and terrible in her demeanor when seemingly not in action, and horrifyingly murderous when given the chance to fight. Her hatred of the aristocracy has been brought about by the oppresion that the aristocracy has put on the middle/lower class. Her anger has been builiding slowly, going unnoticed (not unlike her seemingy harmeless habit of knitting), but eventually bursts. Madame Defarge can be said to represent people of her class and below, absolutely desperate for something to occur in their favor. These people are starving, angry, and penniless. Over and over degraded by the greed of the class above them, it is easy to see why they would want to fight back.

"...the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off..."

The repeted use of the word 'Hunger' here (and it continues) demonstrates the extreme desperation of the people. Stuck in lives of poverty, starvation, misery, and hopelessness, the people are not only hungry literally (in the nutritous sense), but just as much, perhaps even more in the desire for an improved state of living. The use of the word Hunger over and over again beats into our minds the severity of their situation. Their suffering here foreshadows and explains their eventual revolt. Though the vengeance and violence cannot be justified, it is easier to understand their reasoning when we look at life from their point of view. 'Hunger' is said here to have been prevavlent in every small piece of wood that the man sawed off. It is so persistant in their lives that I cannot help feeling extreme pity for these people, whom misery seems to follow into every single facet of their lives.

A Tale of Two Cities was very difficult to read, but when looked at carefully, encompassed a captivating plotline. I enjoyed learning about the time period and the social and cultural circumstances of the time period, as I have been learning parallel information in European History. It is amazing to see the facts I learn every day backed up in an actual story which touches on the emotions, conversations, and desires of the actual people in the time period. Though I wish I had had more time to carefully analyze the symbols and characters in the story, I did enjoy the plot and energetic scenes.

Cat's Cradle

Felix Hoenikker's three children are Vonnegut's representation of an unreasonable, greedy, and irreponsible humanity. Felix himself had little common sense, responsibility, or understanding of familial love. His mishandling of his creation of spontinaity, ice-nine, led to the possession of this substance by his children. In a combination of irresponbile and foolish choices, the ice-nine in the possession of each child ended up out of their hands. Vonnegut attempts to show the consequences of human actions. The book makes the statement that it is fruitless to warn humanity not to repeat the mistakes of the past because they happen anyway, out of our own selfishness and sutpidity. The Hoenikker children witnessed the atrocity brought on by the atomic bomb. It is incredulously ironic that, as adults, they vie for possession of the most dangerous substance ever created. This is a sure example of how Vonnegut uses the Hoenikker children to make his commentary on humanity as a whole.

"If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbling my nose at You Know Who" (Vonnegut 191)

The closing statement of the novel sums up the entirety of Kurt Vonnegut's intended commentary in his writing. All of the ridiculous choices, reasoning (if any), and intents of the characters in the story add up to the author's portrayal of Humanity as a mass of greedy, selfish, irresponsible fools. The paragraph makes an extremely powerful statement- that it is useless to dwell on the wretched mistakes of humanity. When it comes down to it, the best thing one can do is sit back and laugh. An especially significant part is the mention of ice-nine's ability to make statues of men. If ice-nince here represents the overwhelming greed for power, then the statues represent the leaders in our society who have succumbed to the dangerous addicition of power. In the same way that these statues, these leaders blinded by greed, were destroyed by their desires, ice-nine physically destroys humanity.

I found a true interest this novel. It was thoroughly enjoyable to try to decipher the meanings of the symbols, characters, and settings within the novel. Though a seemingly ridiculous plot on the surface, the book clearly had a significant, underlying meaning, and I loved being able to figure out what it was. Take, for example, the mishandling of the completely science fiction substance ice-nine. This may appear to be an insignificant plot detail, however, on the larger scale, it can actually represents the irresponsibility of humans and their tendency to act based on greed than on reason. In the same way, the beautiful daughter of Papa on San Lorenzo, Mona, is nothing more than a sex symbol, the representation of irresponsible human desires. Understanding these underlying meanings on the surace of seemingly superflous infomation was my favorite part of reading Cat's Cradle. It turned out that Vonnegut was maknig a much bigger statement than I realized at the beginning of my reading.