The Importance of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde

✨"If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”✨

The importance of Being Earnest is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious identities to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make thisWilde's most enduringly popular play.

The play revolves around the story of two bachelors Algy and Jack. Both have a well-established life, Algy lives in London, Jack lives in the countryside as a Judge of the Peace. Being tired of their lives and hardship both create their invalids or pretends or altered egos. In the play, Jack and Algernon ‘Bunbury’- both of them have other identities, highlighting the Victorians extremes whereby their acts of conducting identity fabrications can be masked tightly under the belief that they are still adhering to the Victorian morality. This happens for Jack under the excuse of having to adopt a very high responsibility of taking care of a ward named Cecily, who lives in the country, hence it is presumably fine for him to require the presence of another identity for his own ease of travelling back and forth between London and the country on both work and personal matters.

As for Algernon, the fact that he is a part of the upper class simply becomes a license for him to do whatever he wishes to do even when it means to live life as a rich brat who does nothing but wasting the wealth given down to him by enjoying his life to the fullest. Apparently, this seems to be perfectly fine for Algernon to be carrying out his ‘bunburying’ activities for a reason that the upper Victorian class believe regardless of anything they are actually born to rule through the divine right and they wanted this right to continue, hence they can do whatever they want as long as they are in the upper-class society. In a way, this act of ‘bunburying’ can be seen as a form of the decadence of true humanity as it is indeed a form of hypocrisy masked with the nobility of the upper class.

Wilde uses satire to ridicule the cultural norms of marriage love and mindset which were very rigid during the Victorian Age. Because he uses satire to ridicule these institutions, he shows the deviance from the social order by making ridiculous the ideas of standards, morals and manners. By trying to correct the flaws of the characters in this play, this piece also serves as a great form of criticism.

The name Ernest is a word play on Earnest, hence the title, is ironical because earnest means resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction, but here, the people here who are employing the name are far from being earnest.

The subtitle of the play “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” though seems to be unrelating to the main title yet it splendidly articulates the purpose of his play. It reveals the hypocrisy, absurdity, and triviality of the upper class of Victorian society, who dubbed themselves as the most important section of the society. The word “Trivial” means “unserious” or “lacking importance”. Thus in this sense, Wilde probably wants to say that the play has nothing to do with the serious people. It is just mocking their ways of life.

Bunburying is a euphemism for anal intercourse. When taking into account the life of Wilde, this aspect of the play is to be considered important. A well-known fact is that Wilde was a homosexual being who often hid this part of them and adorned the mask of a heterosexual because being homosexual in the Victorian Era would result in being incriminated and worse.

Now well-loved and highly acclaimed, Oscar Wilde is one of the most important figures in English Literature. A pioneer of the aesthetic movement which advocated ‘art for art’s sake’ and an excellent writer, Oscar Wilde’s works are seminal. He employs myriads of wordplays which makes the play interesting, the characters are on point- three dimensional and entertaining and plot is absolutely engrossing.

When I read the play by myself for the first time, I loved it immediately. I personally am a fan of satire, so this one was right up my alley. And when I watched the movie starring Colin Firth and Rupert Everett, I was laughing the whole while- a well-made adaptation.