Sophia Skorupski

Professor Ayres

Major British Writers

5 April 2024

Essay 2

In the play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde not only entertains his

audience using wit, humor, and wordplay, but also provides a social commentary on the world of

the English upper class and their values. The premise is based on two male characters, Jack and

Algernon, who want to marry two girls, Gwendolyn and Cecily, respectively. Cecily and

Gwendolyn are both interested in their respective partner, but on the condition that their name is

Ernest. Both Jack and Algernon are lying to the girls about their true names while

simultaneously trying to brainstorm solutions for their predicament. All of the characters in this

play have ridiculous reactions to one another, and their collective inability to effectively

communicate causes chaos throughout the play. By juxtaposing how the characters treat trivial

matters versus serious decisions, exaggerating common practices among the upper class, and

using word play in the title of his masterful play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar

Wilde draws attention to the absurdity of the upper class as he addresses and ridicules the

traditional values of Victorian society in England.

Wilde’s characters in the play are constantly contradicting what the audience would

expect of reality as a way to illustrate how skewed the characters are in their estimation of the

world. One notable example of this occurs extremely early in the play, when Algernon is

speaking with his servant, Lane. Lane is a very minor character, but he is floating around in the

background throughout the entire play. In this interaction, Algernon asks him a question about
marriage, and Lane answers by giving his opinion. Even though Algernon had quite literally just

asked him a question, he gets very upset with Lane and tells him that he does not care to hear

about any of his personal experiences. Algernon goes on to criticize Lane’s views on marriage,

and comments that “they [the lower orders] seem, as a class, to have no sense of moral

responsibility” (Wilde 943). This comment is subtle, but very interesting because it is the exact

opposite of what most people would consider being the hierarchy of society. Most people, if

asked about who they thought was setting the standard for the rest of society, would answer that

it is the upper class because they are financially and socially above the lower class. However,

Wilde flips this concept on its head by having Algernon express the exact opposite. This

demonstrates that Algernon does not actually have a clear image of the world around him, and he

is essentially living in a bubble protecting him from the reality of the world. Additionally,

Algernon’s comment illustrates to the audience that he is a hypocrite because he is criticizing the

lower class’s morals despite the fact that he was just extremely rude to Lane for absolutely no

reason. Wilde both wanted to point out how out-of-touch the upper classes tended to be, as well

as to satirize the fact that the upper class relied so much on their servants, yet lacked the common

decency to treat them with basic respect.

Another way that Wilde writes his characters to stray from what the audience would

expect based on reality is how they handle serious situations versus trivial situations. Examples

of this can be seen in virtually every page of the play, but one instance would be how unseriously

both Jack and Algernon take marriage, but how seriously they argue over baked goods. Jack and

Algernon both believe that marriage is merely a business transaction. Neither of them are

worrying too much about the women they are marrying, because they do not concern themselves

with their personalities or compatibility. Jack and Algernon’s primary reason for marriage is to
just have a beautiful woman by their side. In fact, when they are discussing their proposals to

their respective women, Jack accuses Algernon of being unromantic. Algernon replies by saying,

“I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is

nothing romantic about a definite proposal” (Wilde 944). This demonstrates that Algernon sees

no connection between love and marriage, and he even goes as far as to separate the two into

entirely different categories. Overall, both men are extremely flippant about their prospective

engagements and marriage.

Although Jack and Algernon hold a concerningly relaxed view on arguably the most

important decision of their lives, this is not the case when it comes to muffins. In the midst of

their troubles with Gwendolyn and Cecily, Jack and Algernon take a break to discuss their plans

to alleviate the tensions. However, instead of listening or contributing any solutions, Algernon is

very focused on eating the muffins laid out on the table. Jack has an objection to the fact that

Algernon is eating instead of trying to think of solutions. Jack tells him, “I say it’s perfectly

heartless you’re eating muffins at all, under the circumstances,” (Wilde 974). There is irony here,

because not only does Algernon care more about the muffins than he does about Cecily, but

clearly Jack cares more about commenting on Algernon’s eating habits than he does about

Gwendolyn. The pair of men go back and forth, arguing about muffins and when it is and is not

appropriate to eat them. The discussion becomes rather heated, which is of course a

demonstration of how skewed their values are. The point of including both of these interactions

is to highlight the juxtaposition between how trivially they treat marriage and how seriously they

treat muffin-eating. Wilde intended to demonstrate the skewed perceptions that the upper class

had on reality by showing how Jack and Algernon focused on things that did not really matter

and simultaneously ignored the magnitude of important decisions.

 Wilde intends to satirize the customs and values of the upper class by overexaggerating

many of their most common practices. In doing this, he highlights the inherent absurdity of the

upper class. The best example of this is when Lady Bracknell, Gwendolyn’s mother, is

questioning Jack following his engagement to Gwendolyn. The questions that Lady Bracknell

asks Jack as well as the comments she makes confirms to the audience that they are truly only

viewing the marriage as a business transaction. Lady Bracknell explains that she is “not in favour

of long engagements [because] they give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s

character before marriage” and she thinks that is a mistake, implying that love and compatibility

does not matter in a union (Wilde 980). She does not ask him a single question about his morals

or values, but instead exclusively asks questions about his finances and income. Some of the

questions she asks seem normal, but her reaction to Jack’s answer seems strange. For example,

she asks Jack where he lives. In a different context, this would be a totally normal and

understandable question for a woman to ask the man who is intending to marry her daughter.

However, Lady Bracknell is exclusively asking this as a means to gauge Jack’s status. When

Jack gives Lady Bracknell his address, she is displeased with his answer and claims that he lives

on “the unfashionable side” of the street (Wilde 953). To hear about someone living on the “bad

side of town” is rather common, but to hear about judging someone based on if their house

address is an even or an odd number is absurd. Lady Bracknell’s impossible standards and

seemingly arbitrary markers further shows how she only views marriage as a means to climb the

social ladder. Wilde’s intention in this interaction is to show how ridiculous it is to treat marriage

as a business transaction as opposed to a loving and supportive union. This discussion between

Lady Bracknell and Jack, although exaggerated, is a representation of how the upper class of

England actually did treat marriage as a way to elevate one’s own status.
 Wilde uses wordplay in the title of his play to poke fun at the values of the English upper

class by highlighting the ridiculousness of not only worrying about a name, but also valuing

status at the expense of morals. Ernest is the name that both of the female characters insist on

their prospective husbands having. At first, Jack and Algernon were only pretending to be named

Ernest as a means for their own selfishness. Jack goes by the name Ernest in the city, but in the

country, he goes by Jack and just pretends that Ernest is his imaginary younger brother.

However, when he was planning on proposing to Gwendolyn, he decided that he did not want to

have the lie hanging over his head anymore. While accepting his proposal, Gwendolyn still

believed his name was Ernest, and she expressed how overjoyed she was to be marrying a man

with a name that inspires such confidence. Jack tries to ask her if she could still love and marry a

man who was named, for example, Jack; Gwendolyn says that she absolutely could not,

explaining that “the only really safe name is Ernest” (Wilde 951). A very similar occurrence

takes place when Algernon, who had shown up in the country claiming to be Jack’s younger

brother, Ernest, is proposing to Cecily. She also believes his name is Ernest, and while accepting

the proposal she explains how much she loves the name. Algernon asks her if she would want to

marry a man even if his name was, for example, Algernon; Cecily tells him that if his name were

something besides Ernest, “I might admire your character, but I fear I should not be able to give

you my undivided attention (Wilde 968). Both of these reactions from these young women seem

bizarre, especially considering that they occurred entirely separate from one another. However,

Wilde uses these wild claims intentionally as a way to comment on the values that are placed on

titles and status.

To a modern audience, the concept of someone’s name having that much of an impact on

the decision to marry someone is ridiculous. However, Wilde wanted to illuminate the fact that
this actually is extremely common among the upper class in England. The only difference

between the situation within the play and one in real-life, is that it is the man’s first name and not

his last name. If a woman in real-life explained that she only wanted to marry a man with a

certain last name from a certain family because she was concerned about advancing her own

status, it would be relatively understandable. However, when it is compared to this scenario, in

which a woman refuses to marry a man unless he has a certain first name, it becomes clear that

the entire concept in its essence makes no sense at all. Wilde seeked to highlight the fact that the

upper class placed importance on aspects that did not really matter by extending the desire for a

proper title to a man’s first name instead of just his last name.

The significance of the name Ernest itself lies in the fact that it is also a real word in the

English language, depending on the spelling. The word Earnest means that someone is very

serious about something. However, throughout the play, the audience has seen time and time

again how inherently unserious Jack and Algernon are. Both of these characters focus on

extremely trivial matters at the expense of taking time to think about serious situations and

decisions they have to make. The irony is that they want to be “Ernest” so badly, but they are not

considering that if they could just be “earnest,” many of their problems would be solved. If Jack

and Algernon decided to fix their perceptions of the world around them and consider the

consequences of their actions, then they would have been able to resolve the tensions between

them and the girls without having to lie about anything. Oscar Wilde includes this wordplay as a

way to demonstrate the cognitive dissonance that exists in the upper class society. These upper

class citizens focused so much on the wrong aspects of the world, but never realized that all they

had to do was slightly shift their perspective for everything to become clear. He wanted to
illustrate to the audience that the upper class often placed importance on and based their values

on the wrong things, and Wilde found this to be laughable.

“The Importance of Being Earnest” was extremely well-received by its audience upon its

release in 1895 for a multitude of reasons. Not only was the play extremely entertaining to the

masses, but there was an underlying message regarding the upper class society in England at the

time. Wilde uses the characters in his play and the predicaments they find themselves in to

satirize the upper class and their values. The way that every character in the play places their

focus on trivial matters while ignoring the serious problems they have is a commentary on the

skewed perception of the upper class and what truly mattered to them. The impossibly high

standards that Lady Bracknell holds Jack to, as well as the overarching theme that marriage is

simply a business transaction demonstrates the way that the upper class cared more about title

and status than they did about love. Lastly, the wordplay between Ernest and Earnest illustrates

not only the ridiculousness of caring so much about a title, but also the way that the upper class

were unable to see the error of their ways and instead continued the cycle of valuing the wrong

things in life. By contrasting how the characters treat trivial matters and important choices,

exaggerating commonly accepted traditions, and using word play in the title of, “The Importance

of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde illuminates the ridiculousness of the upper class as he satirizes

and undermines the morals and values of Victorian society in England.

 Works Cited

Wilde, Oscar. “The Importance of Being Earnest” Norton Anthology of English

Literature: The Major Writers, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 10th ed., vol. 2, W.W.

Norton & Company Inc., 2019, pp. 942–985.