'오이디푸스 왕'과 '성실함의 중요성'의 비교 연구―패러디를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper attempts to show that The Importance of Being Earnest can be read as a modern parody of Oedipus Tyrannus. Both focus on the foundling’s discovery of his true identity by way of marriage, in spite of their significant difference that a crucial role is played by oracle in the one and fiction in the other. The morality principle of oracle governs the world of Oedipus Tyrannus, causing everyone to suffer in one way or another, whereas the pleasure principle of fiction governs that of The Importance of Being Earnest, causing everybody to enjoy happiness in his own way. With its fiction now stripped of all the religious implications of the Delphic oracle in the Greek original, Wilde’s version becomes inevitably modern, that is, realistic, comic, and parodic. Oedipus does his best to outsmart the oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, only to accept the oracle which turns out to be true as his efforts fail. Jack, likewise, realizes that his fictitious brother turns out to be real as he tries to deny Ernest’s existence. Typically enough, Oedipus undeservedly suffers from the bondage of the oracle, and Jack pursues pleasure by creating an attractive fiction to get out of the life’s boredom. As divergent as Sophocle’s tragic vision and Wilde’s comic vision are, they point to one common theme: man is fated forever to search for his own identity.