Brief analysis of 2 plays - Essay Example

The Importance of Being Earnest and A Raisin in the Sun: a Brief Analysis An Assignment Submitted by of Establishment XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2011Featuring dynamic characters, both plays, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, 1895, and A Raising in the Sun by Lorrain Hansberry, 1959, made the growth of their main characters, or protagonists, believable. Accordingly, in the end of the plays I was completely satisfied in the change of the characters.But, instead of focusing on the individual protagonists (for example, Mama, Beneatha, and Asagai in Hasberry’s work, or Jack, Gwendolen, and Cecily in Wilde’s play), we will focus on overall change of the social hero itself in the plays.

In A Raising… leading position was totally occupied by the African-American Family in Chicago, the Youngers, its social description within the racial prejudices and financial difficulties. Moreover, collective will of the Family on a basis of a dialogue of all its members was constructed in the play. Wilde’s social hero in the play, Victorian epoch, full of social norms and dogmas, especially in a field of marriage, gave him a good and effective platform for an art of humor, irony, and satirizing.

Despite of different ways in plot driving and stylistic details, both plays satisfied me a lot, being structured properly around the changes of themselves, in neutral progression of Victorian era, satirized by Wilde (especially regarding marriage as a social practice: “Gwendolen - Cecily - it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind,” Act 2), and positive evolution of the Family in a terrible world of troubles (Beneatha’s: “.

He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Chrisitan fellowship” in Act 2), difficulties (pay attention, as for instance, to Asagai’s words: “…And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred,” Act 3), and, the last but not least, prejudices. References:Hansberry, L. (2004). A Raising in the Sun (7th Ed.). New York: Vintage.Wilde, O. (2008). The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays Lady Windermeres Fan; Salome; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest (Oxford Worlds Classics).

Oxford: Oxford University Press.