In today's world we are all exposed to comedy. We see comedy in a variety of ways. These ways include: movies, plays, situational comedies on television, and stand up comedians. However, there is something very different about the typical comedy today compared to the play "The Importance of Being Earnest" written by Oscar Wilde. The modern comedy usually uses characters that are funny or actors that are known to be great comedians. What I mean by this is that the characters are not usually serious or doing anything of the serious nature. In "The Importance of Being Earnest", Oscar Wilde uses paradox, pun, and paralleled irony to make characters that are in a serious type environment become comic.
             Most commonly, when we think of a paradox, we think of a statement that is contradictory or "far fetched" but somehow is true. But in "The Importance of Being Earnest" it is somewhat different. For example, when Jack returns from London and is pretending to mourn the death of his brother he is confronted by Cecily with the news that his brother was there. Jack then states "What nonsense! I haven't got a brother."(Wilde 68) This statement was true, but only true to Jack because he had led everyone to believe that he indeed had a brother named Earnest living in London. The paradox is that the statement is contradictory, in that it contradicts his own lies and is in fact true as far as he new. The fact that Algernon is there posing as Earnest makes his statement even more contradictory and therefore comical. Another example of a paradox is Algernon first arrives to the country and is talking to Cecily, he tries to convince her that Earnest is not wicked and Cecily replies with "If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked
             ...