Sure Thing Compared To The Importance Of Being Ernest
In both “The Importance of Being Ernest” by Oscar Wilde and “Sure Thing” by David Ives we see many ways that the women in both books are extremely gullible, easily manipulated, and believe what the men are saying to be the truth. We will see that even though the men are caught in several lies and deception that the women keep going back to them and believing the additional lies that are told to them. We will examine the meeting point of both the women and the men, a midpoint of the book, and the end of the book with the women and the men.
In “The Importance of Being Ernest” we start with Jack Worthing calling himself “Ernest”. He has made up this person because it gives him an excuse to visit the city. However, in the country he is known as Jack Worthing, with a brother named Ernest. He then proposes to Gwendolen who states that her idea was to marry someone named Ernest so Jack decides to arrange a private christening so that he can change his name to Ernest.
In the beginning of “Sure Thing” Bill starts off by telling her that he’s never read Faulkner and then he realizes that he needs to be impress her so he lets her know how much he loves Faulkner. “I love Faulkner. I spent a whole winter reading him once.” (Ives, 2007, p. 1262) As you can see in both books the men come up with ideas and lies to try and impress both women.
We then see in “The Importance of Being Ernest” and “Sure Thing” how the men get caught in their lies. Jack and Algernon pay the price by the women calling off their engagement. It seems at this point that the women in “The Importance of Being Ernest” are getting smart about the lies and deception and that they might actually call everything off with the men.
On the other hand with “Sure Thing” we see that Bill is manipulating Betty and he is telling her lie after lie until he figures out what she would like to hear from him. She is proving how gullible and easily manipulated she is.
We will see...
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