Traditionally, drama has been an outlet for the extraordinary; only recently, with more modernist pieces, has the focus shifted to more ordinary lives. Greek tragedy follows the fall of a noble protagonist; in comparison, domestic tragedy like Arthur Miller's All My Sons revolves around ordinary people who are tested by crisis. Meanwhile, comedy often focuses on an "ordinary" character, or otherwise on an extraordinary parody. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest takes the latter approach, and the characters that appear are bold and subversive. In Miller's tragedy, the Kellers are presented in all respects as normal, whereas the male and female characters in The Importance of Being Earnest are bizarre, abnormal. Each of these character models is ideal for the drama the playwrights wish to create, as shaped by the conventions of the tragic or comic genre. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the opening instructions for All My Sons, the Keller house is described in detail to establish a sense of normalcy. The house is "two stories" and "beautifully painted", and there is patio furniture in the yard, which creates a representative and less than exemplary first impression of a typical American family. However, this feeling usually is counterbalanced by a feeling that somewhat resembles fear. There are a few details in the set design that add an ever-present discomfort to the general atmosphere; the yard is “overcast” and claustrophobic, and the plants are “out of season.” By closing the space in this way, Miller is able to convey the sense of boredom and displacement so characteristic of modernist writers. These themes make the Kellers seem more accessible to the audience and therefore, despite the subtle deviation from perfect normality, more ordinary. These elements of the set design also allude to Joe Keller's inevitable moral predicament – ​​he feels trapped by his own past mistakes and both covets and resents his isolation, as conveyed by the "cut" courtship. What Joe Keller allegedly did – sending out faulty airplane parts, resulting in the deaths of twenty-one pilots – is explicitly declared morally repugnant by those around him. Yet the public is not allowed to distance itself from Joe, despite his proclamations that “a man is in business,” which should set him apart. The setting and the sense of normalcy it conveys are always present in the background as a constant visual reminder of how typical the Kellers are. Thus, Joe's mistakes trickle down to the audience, who are forced to question their own contribution to an exploitative economic system. The utterly ordinary character of Miller's main cast is integral to his willingness to raise these questions, because the audience can stand in for any other middle-class suburban family and thus realize the responsibility we should have towards each other. Joe and Kate Keller have the family responsibility that falls on them, characterized by their role as parents. These labels are ordinary and identifiable and are central to the emotional drama of the play. Kate and her conflicts are centered around her maternal role, and in her we can see the neurotic need for motherhood. She is obsessed with the fate of her son Larry, believing him to be missing, and her mental abstraction leads her to physical decay; she has to ask for "aspirin", and she is kept from sleeping peacefully by dreams of him“flying above his head”. When George visits her, she responds by bringing him "grape juice" and worrying about his weight, quickly and easily putting herself in the role of his parent. As she coddles everyone on stage, including herself and her own illusions ("Why can't it be?" she cries despite all evidence to the contrary), the ordinary role she fulfills transforms into something almost sinister, and generates a feeling of suffocating unease. Miller uses her ordinary people to create unusual feelings in her audience, showing how these natural needs – family, money, reputation – can be perverted in the same way that Kate does with her maternal role. Even though she's on the brink of what appears to be an impending mental breakdown, it's actually Joe who ends up collapsing under the pressure, shockingly. Joe Keller, as a physically "stamp" character and father figure, should be strong but emerges as the weakest of the cast thanks to his escape route to suicide. In addition to calling himself a "businessman," he also takes on a fatherly role and states that if there is anything bigger than family, "I'll put a bullet in my head." By strongly associating himself with the duties of a father, his lack of moral principles when it comes to shipping faulty engine parts is all the more distressing. At the play's climax, he utters the phrase "I suppose they [the pilots] were all my sons", then retreats indoors to commit suicide. He failed in his responsibility as a father by leading to the deaths of his eldest son Larry and his other figurative children, those in the larger society who rely most on his support and protection. Miller, by having his ordinary characters fail in their ordinary roles, inspires an additional sense of pathos and moral righteousness in his audience. In comparison, Jack and Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest defy conventions and appear as extraordinary and eccentric characters. Although arguably to some extent "ordinary" due to the fact that theatergoers of the time were primarily upper class as were the two heroes, Wilde does not attempt to make the couple approachable or normal. They take upper-class frivolity to the extreme, as both are devoted "Bunburyists" – men who fabricate elaborate lies so that they can lead two separate existences and escape their duties. Jack's story is further a pastiche of the Victorian appetite for melodrama, as it follows the classic trope of the disadvantaged orphan, exemplified by the "handbag" prop found in the "station cloakroom of Victoria.” Algernon, on the other hand, appears as a stereotypical dandy, defined by his love of indulgences such as music, clothes, and, most notably, food. Algernon's extraordinary appetite is the source of a recurring joke, first when he eats an entire tray of cucumber sandwiches, then pretends there never were any in the first place, and devours then a stack of muffins in a “perfectly heartless way.” Both men behave in almost every way exceptionally and almost impulsively, as they are driven to increasingly extreme behaviors in order to cover up their previous deceptions, such as being rebranded under a different name. The extraordinary character of the protagonists is at the heart of The Importance of Being Earnest's drama and its comedy. Their outlandish behaviors push the boundaries of the narrative and create opportunities for Wilde's satirical sense of humor. The female characters in Oscar Wilde's play are still,.