3 Review(s)

This combo product is bundled in India but the publishing origin of this title may vary.Publication date of this bundle is the creation date of this bundle; the actual publication date of child items may vary.“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”This iconic line from The Importance of Being Earnest perhaps best sums up the spirit of this play, written by Oscar Wilde. The farcical comedy is a satire on the hypocrisy of late 19th-century Victorian society. Performed in 1895 at the St James’s Theatre, in London, and published in 1899, the play has long been considered to be Wilde’s most famous work as a playwright. Widely appreciated by readers of all ages, the witty masterpiece is centered on the themes of marriage, social expectations, class and the lifestyle in Victorian society. The play portrays the events in the lives of two men – Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff – who use deception to bend the truth to seek thrill in their lives. Known as the first-of-its-kind modern comedy in England, the play is regarded for its witty dialogues and eccentric characters. Counted among the best of satirical comedies, The Importance of Being Earnest continues to delight readers with its comical yet snappy banter that brings out the absurdity of human behaviour.,Published posthumously in 1924 by Kafka’s friend, Max Trod, after his death, The Trial is a criticism of a totalitarian form of government, which traps an individual into systems of oppression and inhibits them from any means of escape. The protagonist of the story, Josef K, is accused of a crime that he didn’t commit. The absurdity of the entire ordeal, however, is that the nature of the crime is never revealed to him or to us, the readers. The more Josef K ventures into systems of authority and ‘justice’, to prove his innocence, the more he becomes entangled in the procedural complexities of the court and the justice system. His attempt to prove his innocence only implicates him further and the increasing uncertainty of his fate propels him towards making misguided choices. Kafka’s works, more often than not, portray a bleak, hopeless world where a just society and governance is more a matter of imagination than reality. He compels his readers to question the monotony of the systems around them as well as structures of authority. Kafka’s The Trial represents a solemn yet surreal world where an individual is isolated; his freedom and his rights stifled; and any ‘trial’ that occurs is simply a farce wherein different structures of authority push an individual into an inescapable maze.