Favorite Plays: Importance of Being Earnest & Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

(One of the essays for the University of Chicago) Respond by writing a paragraph or two. Share with us a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, blogs, magazines, or newspapers? Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed, or add a category of your own.

If life could be a model of a literary work, it should imitate The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. With all the wit, puns, cynicism, Victorian repression, paradoxes, epigrams, Bunburying, and arguments over cigarette cases, this play would make for a Wilde-ly amusing existence. If people were more honest about reality and themselves, then the world might consist of less social ills through the deterioration of illusions and more meaningful relationships between individuals through the fostering of personas that reflect a person's true being. On a more existential note, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an irresistible example of absurdist revelation. Following Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on a hilarious-and eventually fatal-journey showed me not only an unforgettable instance of a coin defying probability, but also a great reason to make choices and steer the course of my life. Until I read this play, I did not realize the danger of my passive attitude towards life; now I value the importance of being earnest about decision-making. For instance, a choice I am particularly earnest about is applying to the University of Chicago and, hopefully, attending it.

haha...I love that word.


good stuff


Is there a simpler version of this one? ;)
Anyway, this could be more personal.


A suggestion
Can you rearrange that into a single sentence? I mean, the "for instance" part makes the reader pause slightly, and I think it would be better if that didn't happen.

Something like this -- now I value the importance of being earnest about decision making, like the decision of applying to University of Chicago.

I think this should be the start of paragraph 3.

I see this thing as 2 body paragraphs, because they each express a meaningful idea that deserves discussion.

If you divide this into 2 body paragraphs, and then you go tack a new intro paragraph, the new intro paragraph can discuss the unique theme that emerges when you put these two big concepts together.

If you made this into 4 paragraphs by adding an intro and conclusion para and separating this material into 2 body paragraphs, it can be a cool exposition of some unique concept you derive from looking at these 2 big concepts together.

Or you can keep it where it is, and that is totally okay. This is great already. I was just babbling. There is no reason everyone needs to structure these things the way I do.I was just giving you the idea that comes to mind for me.

Ah! I did not even notice until now that they ask for a paragraph or two... so, I recommend making this two paragraphs. :-)