A Greater Understanding and Appriciation Based Upon Satire

H.F.’s review on the play The Importance of being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, is short, informative, and straight to the point. After watching the play, H.F. expresses his fondness for the play and the decadence era. His criticism is very positive, and he begins it by writing this: “Oscar Wilde may be said to have at last, and by a single stroke, put his enemies under his feet” (99). This indicates that H.F. understands Wilde and the period of decadence, because he understands the fact that Wilde intention of the play was to satirically portray the rich, fashionable, upper class group of people (Wilde’s” enemy”) as hypocritical and immoral, and in doing this, Wilde was able to portray his perception of this group of people to the audience. When H.F. watched the play, he also realized that other people were able to relate to Wilde’s humor and presentation of the upper class because according to H.F., he has “not [never] heard such unrestrained, incessant laughter from all parts of the theatre” (99). The play was able to bring people together from all parts of the theatre in a common laughter, because people could laugh about the Victorian era and how immoral the people were. It does not tell the exact year that H.F. wrote this review, so it is unclear when he saw the play, but the positive way in which he writes indicates that it must have been quite a few years after the actual Victorian period, because it is easy for people to look back and laugh at how things were. I believe that H.F. would not have been able to appreciate the play or watch as many people laugh throughout the audience had the audience actually lived in the Victorian era. In conclusion, H.F. leaves the readers of his review with this: “It [the play] will remain on the boards here for an indefinitely extended period” (99). H.F. believes that people will continue to appreciate this play for its willingness to go against the culture of the time and be different, and I think this prediction has come true, because I as well as my classmates were able to appreciate the humor of this play over 110 years later.