Earnest and Dr. Faustus: Compare and Contrast - Essay Example

Earnest” and “Dr. Faustus Compare and Contrast Although both “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde and “Dr. Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe are full of comedic moments and can thus be considered comedies, they are each hinged on a central theme of deception that has different consequences for the principle figures involved. In “The Importance of Being Earnest”, several of the characters are discovered to be pretending to be something that they’re not. It is only when they try to be honest with themselves and others that they begin to find happiness in themselves. “Dr. Faustus” is different because it looks at deception from a different point of view. In this play, the main character is permitted to commit a series of malicious pranks without any threat of immediate punishment. However, his willingness to do so serves to seal his own damnation in the end. While deception may be the main theme in both plays, each uses its own tricks to show that deception is rarely the fun and games its expected to be. The two main characters in “The Importance of Being Earnest” are Algernon “Algy” Moncrieff and Jack Worthing. Both of these characters feel highly restricted by the strict Victorian upper class rules they are subject to if they want to retain their place of privilege in their society. To combat these constraints, each character has developed an alter ego that provides them with more ‘breathing space.’ It is a deception that seems harmless enough until it becomes a problem. This happens when both Jack and Algy each fall in love with a woman who knows them only as their alter-ego. Jack’s lady-fair is Gwendolyn Fairfax who is also Algy’s cousin. For his part, Algy falls in love with Cecily Cardew who is also Jack’s ward. For both women, an essential condition of marriage is that her husband’s name must be Earnest. To assure his own future happiness, Algy instantly works to get himself rechristened under the new name. Jack, on the other hand, discovers through a sudden recognition of Lady Bracknell’s, that his name really is Earnest and he has been lost from his true family through the negligence of an absent-minded governess. At the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Faustus is already famous at the beginning of his play as a pre-eminent scholar. In spite of his reputation, he is aware that he has learned all he can on his own yet hasn’t yet reached the limits of his capacity for knowledge. When given the chance, he jumps at the opportunity to trade his soul for 24 years of anything he desires. Although he’d imagined he’d use his new power to free people from poverty and tyranny as he’d imagined he might before he gained the power, the doctor decides to use it instead in order to cheaply entertain the emperor and then to play mean tricks on the Pope during a dinner party. While the element of deception is a major component of how Faustus interacts with those around him, what sticks in the memory most about his character is the way in which Faustus has deceived himself. The most obvious form of deception in both “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Dr. Faustus” is discovered as the primary characters of Jack, Algy and Fautus seek to fool others as the play progresses. For both Jack Worthing and Algy Moncrieff, the only means they can find to achieve the freedom they desire from their highly constricted Victorian world is to develop alternate identities that they’ve named ‘Earnest’ and ‘Bunbury’ respectively. Algy sums up this arrangement when he tells Jack, “You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose” (Wilde, Act 1, Scene 1). This statement makes it clear that both characters have developed similar schemes of deception. Faustus also practices deception as he uses all the powers at his command to do little more than play stupid jokes on important people for his own childish amusement. A prime example of this behavior can be found in his interactions with the Pope at a special banquet in Act III, Scene 1. The insanity begins as the Pope crosses himself after an invisible Faustus grabs the dinner dishes out of the air, Faustus tells him “Well, there’s the second time. Aware the third; / I give you fair warning. / [The POPE crosses himself again, and FAUSTUS hits him a box / of the ear; and they all run away.] All three of these characters are convinced that they are the cleverest people around because of the seeming success they have in deceiving others. In both plays, the main characters are convinced that they are so clever they can fool anyone but they are not so clever as to realize that they are actually being deceived by others. This element of deception plays as important a role in these plays as the main characters’ attempts to deceive. While both Jack and Algy are able to fool each other and several others through the invention of their alter egos, the most surprising deception comes out of the bird-brained Miss Prism. As it turns out, she once worked as a nurse maid to a wealthy family until one day when she lost an infant in a bathroom. Her deception following that mishap finally leads to the revelation of Jack’s true identity and paves the way for his future life of truth. “Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Bracknell’s house, Number 104, Upper Grosvenor Street, in charge of a perambulator that contained a baby of the male sex. You never returned. … Where is that baby?” (Wilde, Act III, Scene II), Lady Bracknell demands of Ms. Prism, upon which Prism confesses she has no idea and the entire truth of Jack is revealed. Although Mephastophilis, the devil’s servant, tells Faustus nothing but the truth, including the horrors he suffers wherever he goes, Faustus chooses to focus on those who would deceive him such as Cornelius and the evil devil. Trying to make the study of magic seem like the best thing that ever happened to him, Cornelius tells Faustus “[t]he miracles that magic will perform / will make thee vow to study nothing else” (Marlowe, Act 1, Scene 1) while the evil angel distracts Faustus from thoughts of repentance to “think of honour and of wealth” (Marlowe, Act 1, Scene 5) instead. Perhaps the greatest deception in both tales, however, is the deception the main characters of Faustus and Jack Worthing pull on themselves. Faustus continues to deceive himself that he’s doing the right thing for his own well-being despite repeated feelings of trepidation and warnings from others such as the good angel and the old man – “I might prevail / To guide thy steps unto the way of life, / By which sweet path thou mayst attain the goal / That shall conduct thee to celestial rest!” (Marlowe, Act III, Scene III). While Jack believes himself to be out deceiving the world, he learns in the end that he has never lied at all about who he is as he was christened both Earnest and John after his father before him and that he really does have a disreputable younger brother in the figure of Algy: “Algy’s elder brother! Then I have a brother after all. I knew I had a brother! I always said I had a brother!” (Wilde, Act III, Scene II). With deception playing such a large role in both plays, it is notable to see the different forms of deception inherent in the stories as well as the widely different results this deception produces. While both Dr. Faustus and Jack Worthing practice deception on others and feel they are too clever to fall to the deception by others, they each are deceived in their own self-evaluation. Jack Worthing proves to be worthy of a good, honest life despite his attempts at trickery mainly because the truth was on his side while Dr. Faustus is provided the truth from the beginning and suffers eternally for his complete deceit of himself. References Marlowe, C. (1616). “Dr. Faustus”. Masterplots. Ed. S. Flecher. Salem Press, Inc., 1996. Wilde, O. (1895). “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”. Masterplots. Ed. S. Bromige. Salem Press, Inc., 1996. Read More