THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

COMMENTS ON THE READING

The first thing that comes to my mind when trying to comment on the play is the fact
that the title and the double sense or joke it makes could describe the entire work and all
the turns inside it.

This play is a comedy that starts analysing the meaning of earnest that is a synonym of
“serious” and the name Ernest that plays an important role in the work. My first
comment is ironically referred to the end of the play, where Jack discovers that his real
name is Ernest. Throughout all the work, he has been pretending that it was his name
but in fact it supposedly was not. He was abandoned when he was a baby so that it why
at the end, he discovers his real name. I do not know if it is just me that cannot
understand this comedy or just that I do not like it, but this is a nonsense for me. Like
the joke on the title was good because this was a supposed “comedy for serious people”
as the author said playing with the inside joke and then the comedy was the characters
were pretending to be “Ernests” to scape the life where they had to be serious people, so
there was the inside joke. If the real name was Ernest, at the end there is no joke,
because the importance of being “Ernest” for me was the fact that the name helped them
scape the lives they did not want and now there is no importance because they are
always like the same person or identity, and they are no scaping anything at all.

Other aspect I would like to highlight are the characters of Cecily and Gwendolen. Their
personalities are portrayed in one way when they are by their own, but when they
interact with the “Ernests” or when it comes to them, pursuing what they want, they
suffer a big change of personality portraying them as fake or just a façade. Gwendolen
is intelligent and she pursues morality but when it comes to Jack all that disappears and
even if she loves him, she just wants an Ernest, so the intelligence and moral are gone,
and she is in my opinion snob and dumb and insufferable. On the other hand, Cecily is
portrayed as pure and innocent and she is sweet, but when it comes to “Ernest” the
supposed brother of his uncle, she prefers him just because of the name, ignoring the
fact that the made-up Ernest is a troublemaker and with her innocence disappearing.

Also, as a last comment, I always like to do some research on the names and meanings.
In this case, Ernest means honest, which is ironical because “Ernests” are a lie in this
play. It also means “that fights to win” which refers in the play to the idea of the
 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

characters making up the stories and name of the “Ernests” to win the love of the girls
which apart of the satirical meaning explained before, also has a literal reference.