Analysis of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

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Summary of Oscar Wilde’s "The Importance of Being Earnest"

A(caps)lgernon Moncrieff, Jack Ward, Cecily Cardew, and John Worthing are in pursuit of Gwendolen Fairfax. These men lead double or "invisible" lives, as Jack is known in town as Ernest while pretending in the country that he has a wicked brother. Ernest, a fictitious character, always visits the sickly Bunbury whenever he has engagements in town, especially with his formidable aunt, Lady Bracknell. After many conflicts, confusions, and confessions of identities, it is revealed that Cecily’s governess, Miss Prism, had once mislaid Jack as a baby in a handbag at a Victoria train station. At last, it becomes exposed that Jack and Algy are indeed brothers, and Jack’s real name is actually Ernest. All objections to pairings, misgivings, and conflicts are at last settled, and Gwendolen’s likeness to the name of Ernest is fulfilled, ending the play happily and humorously as a reflection of the social trivialities of Victorian England.

Themes:

3.5.1 Materialism:

The play ridicules the Victorian upper class that controlled the wealth of the period. It questions the ideals of the ruling class of the Victorian age, as seen through the ways in which the characters are portrayed. Lady Bracknell represents the example of the upper class, whose members distance themselves from the lower and middle-class people. But there are other leading factors or qualities that are often considered before marriage is allowed among the upper class. In the play, Lady Bracknell typifies the overriding importance of material wealth and class distinction; hence, she opposes the engagements of Gwendolen, Jack, and Cecily to Algernon.

3.5.2 False Appearance:

Jack is questioned about his parentage and parental social status, wealth, politics, and relevance among the upper-class members. The upper class measures people by their social worth, economic status, and general societal importance and success. The playwright further ridicules the social, economic, and political pursuits of the Victorian age. To the upper class of the age, everything is possible; the height of the socio-economic ladder of wealth is attainable and possible as it defines the true humanity and character of a human being. Algernon pretends to be a dandy and dresses to impress, concealing his true identity in the play as a debtor. He represents the life of hidden filth, lies, corruption, and duplicitous existence that characterized the age. The belief in false appearance among the upper class is also depicted in the life of young Lady Lancing, who is transformed within three months by a Frenchman such that "her own husband did not know her, and after six months, nobody knew her" (p.59).

3.5.3 Worthlessness of Marriage:

From the beginning of the play, we are made suspicious that marriage is considered unimportant and of worthless value by the aristocratic class of Victorian society. Marriage, the cherished social institution, is presented in English society as socially misleading and valueless. When Algernon asks the reasons for the high depletion of the stock of his champagne, she is told that "in married households, the champagne is rarely of a first rate" (p.7). This means that married couples have low social status and hardly associate with or know what is good for them and the society, particularly the finest of wines.

3.5.4 Upper-Class Concept of Marriage as a Contract:

The moral decadence of the era is reflected in the assumption that ideological reason in marriage is different from the views expected of the learned members of the society. The upper class sees marriage as a contract and not a lifelong affair. For instance, Algernon sees marriage as the unfortunate edge of the pleasure of life; thus, he advises that every man should be satisfied with the pleasure of life before even thinking of getting into marriage, which ends all pleasures and freedom. For example, Dr. Chasuble, when taking a walk with Miss Prism, exposed the woman’s view that "no married man is ever attractive but to his wife". This indicates that marriage is never a safe haven for immorality.

The Victorian aristocrats, it appears, do not know the true meaning that is attached to love and marriage; as a result, they are often tickled or tricked into getting involved in meaningless love by trivialities. The trivial and ridiculous way the Victorian characters in the play discuss love, courtship, and marriage reduces the idea of marriage to the ordinary, an unserious engagement, or a common contractual arrangement that may even be broken at will.

3.5.5 Lower class members of the Victorian age as Underdogs:

The sermon of Dr. Chasuble on the discontent among the upper-class virtues at the expense of other classes has the intention to favor the upper-class members of society. The sermon is calculated to uphold their dignity and further empower and make them have a stronghold on society. That is why Lady Bracknell is against inter-class marriages and condemns as unfashionable and of low social value the 149 Belgrade Square environment where Jack says his house is.

For the propertied class, the education and self-worth of the masses are unnecessary; education, to her, is better for the upper class so as to be the ruling class. The lower-class masses are kept lower and away from being educated to avoid their upward advancement.

Style:

3.6 Style:

Some of the stylistic features of the play are explained with examples drawn from the play.

3.6.1 Dramatic Irony:

In this technique, the audience, through the utterances of the characters, knows some things which are not known to some of the characters. The playwright uses this technique to create room for comedy in the play. Dramatic irony is used in the play in the following instances.

When Jack arrives from London, he appears mournful even in his way of dressing, saying that his brother, “Ernest” died of a severe chill at the Grand Hotel in Paris. Mrs. Prism and Dr. Chasuble console him; but the audience is aware of his treacherous lies. He is the same Ernest who is now pronounced dead, so he really does not have a brother by the name Ernest who is in London. In reality, Jack has been going around London enjoying himself; he only comes to his objects of mockery to wear deceptive looks. Always and everywhere in the play, whenever Algernon assumes the name, Ernest, an ironic situation comes to play. Apart from the characters themselves, everyone falls for the deception. At last, the principal player ceases not to be Ernest when he assumes the name “Ernest”.

3.6.2 Paired/duplication of Characters:

Some of the characters are presented in a way that they parallel the other. For example, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff are characters that are paired with Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. Jack is in love with Algernon’s cousin, while Algernon is also in love with Jack’s ward. They are all from the upper class. They assume a life of duplicity, paralleling the other characters in the same act. Each woman falls in love with the other’s relatives. They both fall in love for no serious reason. They are presented as smart in the way they pursue their intentions, as being capable of outwitting the authorities under which they exist. For instance, Gwendolen outsmarts her mother to fall in love with Jack the same way Mrs. Cecily manipulates Miss Prism to give up German grammar lessons and outwits Jack in the process.

3.6.3 Epigrammatic or Conversational Humor:

The play is a comedy of manners as it provokes laughter not from action but from what is said. The playwright uses epigrams to invoke humor. When Jack says he won’t be interested in Bunbury once married to Gwendolen, Algernon jokes about it by saying “You don’t seem to realize that in married life, there is company and two is none” (p.14).

There are many instances of the use of dark humor in the play. Perhaps the subject matter of the play which deals with love, courtship, and marriage helps the playwright to achieve this. Wilde may have chosen to discuss love and marriage to be able to re-enact the social experiences of the Victorian age, which are manifested in the institution of marriage. While disagreeing with Jack on how best to relate to a woman, Algernon offers his own humorous view of women, love, and marriage, though his view reduces the woman to a mere article that can be used and discarded, “if beautiful but unusable if not pretty”. To him, women are sensuous and necessary “snare” desirable by man. Man’s love for woman should not exceed cupboard’s love.

3.6.4 Use of Symbolism:

The playwright uses some characters and names as symbols to represent the Victorian aristocratic class. For instance, Lady Bracknell and her daughter, Gwendolen, symbolize the era’s earnestness and autocratic and oppressive value of the upper class. Their desire is to keep the people of the lower class down the bottom of the ladder, socially stagnant, and backward economically. In contrast, they work to feed the high-class members of the society beyond the reach of the commoners, lower, and middle-class members of Victorian society. Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble, as well as Jack and Algernon, are the primary symbols of the deceptive life of the Victorian age, and this is seen in the dual life pattern of the characters. Also, Miss Prism (light of multifarious colors, rainbow appearance) symbolizes that which functions to process light into various attractive colors.