{"id":301,"date":"2022-03-13T22:55:02","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T02:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/?p=301"},"modified":"2022-03-13T22:55:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T02:55:04","slug":"lying-for-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/2022\/03\/13\/lying-for-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Lying for Fun :)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While reading&nbsp;<em>The Importance of Being Earnest,&nbsp;<\/em>I noticed a lot of connections between this work and \u201cThe Decay of Lying.\u201d At the beginning of Act 1, Algernon says, \u201cThe truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!\u201d (362). This reminded me a lot of how in \u201cThe Decay of Lying,\u201d Vivian states that modern literature is worse off because people don\u2019t make up entertaining lies anymore and that they were too adherent to realism. Throughout Wilde\u2019s works, an ongoing theme is that it\u2019s a good thing to lie as long as it\u2019s entertaining.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first half of this play, Algernon and Jack lie constantly for their own personal gain and amusement. They both made up people in order to go into the country or into town, and even when Jack decides to stop using Earnest as an excuse to go into the city, he decides the best way to get rid of Earnest is to kill him off instead of going clean. Both characters adhere to Wilde\u2019s philosophy about lying.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Wilde seems to contradict his philosophy about lying by introducing consequences to Jack\u2019s actions. When Jack\u2019s lie is found out by Algernon, Algernon goes out into the country pretending to be Earnest, which complicates the situation. Although I haven\u2019t finished the play yet, I predict that Algernon\u2019s and Jack\u2019s lies will implode, they\u2019ll get in trouble for what they\u2019ve done, and they\u2019ll learn \u201cthe importance of being earnest,\u201d as the title suggests. Perhaps the reason why Wilde seems to be contradicting himself by introducing consequences is because Algernon and Jack lied for their own personal gain and not just to be entertaining. (Although their lies are very entertaining for us as readers.) Or maybe it\u2019s simply Wilde contradicting his own ideas because he always contradicts himself. But just like telling the truth, consistency is boring, and it\u2019s better to be inconsistent and entertaining than boring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While reading&nbsp;The Importance of Being Earnest,&nbsp;I noticed a lot of connections between this work and \u201cThe Decay of Lying.\u201d At the beginning of Act 1, Algernon says, \u201cThe truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!\u201d (362). This reminded me &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/2022\/03\/13\/lying-for-fun\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lying for Fun \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[533032,541776,541764],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lying","tag-the-decay-of-lying","tag-the-importance-of-being-earnest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/oascarwilde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}