An Age of Surfaces

As I read through the script of Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Ernest, a quote by Lady Bracknell struck me: "We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces." This was written in 1895, yet the idea of the quote still holds today. We judge by appearances, which are almost always decieving, and then by what a person says, which often holds even less truth. So the substantiality of a person's being is seldom well-founded.

For instance, you ask someone a question about their favorite (insert material object here), and they will try to sound unique, classic, stylish, etc. For example:

Beau Diddly: So, what's your favorite novel?

Sally Joe: Oh, you know...Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, those sort of books.

Alright, first of all, you CANNOT group books together based on the fact that sisters wrote them (not together, as someone tried to convince me in earlier days). Classics are sometimes considered all the same, but that is because no one in earlier days considered the need to add a twist in literature. Most modern literature followes the same sort of plotline with a varying writing style and a "twist" (adding witchcraft, homosexuality, anything to make it more fascinating-vampires are becoming extremely popular; must be the idea of blood that captures the imagination)

When a girl goes out to the bar, does she practice being nice, caring and funny? No-she tries to be hot. Know why? You should. Relationships are becoming less desirable, and the standard is not the quality of a person, but their appearance. So people like me, who sit around watching annoyingly long movies (BBC America is sucking the life out of me) and eating ice cream with their friends, will never understand the concept of going out to get drunk and laid-how is that more enjoyable than waking up without a headache and a no sense of mild pleasure (or disgust, depending on how the night goes)? Is it that I merely lack maturity? Most likely, but that won't change me. Quoting Eric Blair (okay, George Orwell), ignorance is strength. So all of the brilliant, clever, thoroughly experienced (to quote The Importance of Being Ernest) people out there can let that soak in. That's all my ranting requires for today.

The Importance of Being Ernest Quotes:

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?
I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain.

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

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.

Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor Bunbury died this afternoon...He was quite exploded.

London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

(When Jack mentions that his shameful brother, Ernest, is dead)
What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it.

Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

I never change, except in my affections.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.

I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.

(And to wrap the whole thing up!)
I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

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