Compare and contrast two plays, Dr. Fausto and The Importance of Being Essay

Compare and contrast two plays, Dr. Fausto and The Importance of Being Earnest, which address a specific moral or social theme - Essay Example However, both of these plays also directly address the question of morality, or perhaps immorality would be a better term, of deliberate deception. Within Wilde’s play, more than one character pretends to be someone or something different from what they really are. They are only able to achieve a state of true happiness when they ‘come clean’ about their identities, thus fulfilling the name of the play by illustrating the importance of being earnest, which is another term for honest and sincere. Marlowe’s story focuses more on the darker elements or consequences of deception as his character perpetrates a number of cruel tricks to fulfill his own sense of amusement, fooling both himself and others until he finally comes to realize the true horror of his own doom. Although the course of events is much different from Wilde to Marlowe leading to necessarily differing conclusions regarding the consequences of deception, both playwrights attempt to convey to the ir audiences that deception, no matter what its form or intent, is rarely if ever worth the trouble it creates. Within each of these plays, deception is seen as the only means by which the characters can achieve their own personal inner desires from life. Approaching the lighter of the two plays first, the primary characters in Wilde’s play are Jack Worthing and Algernon ‘Algy’ Moncrieff. As the play begins, it becomes immediately obvious that both of these characters feel severely hampered in pursuing their interests by the rigid conventions of polite society. The only means they discover to escape these constraints is to invent an alter ago who provides them with the means of adopting an entirely different persona. While their individual games are not specifically designed to bring harm upon anyone, the complications that ensue when each of these